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In Oldest England 




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In Oldest England 



BY 

GEORGE PHILIP KRAPP 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
NEW YORK CITY 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
LONDON, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 
I912 



DA 15 2, 

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Copyright, 1912, by 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



€C!.A3J2946 
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TO 

HAROLD AND JACK 

AND CECIL AND JANE 



PREFACE 

To-day all we know about the men and women 
who lived in oldest England we learn from the manu- 
scripts which their scribes wrote. From these writ- 
ings we know many facts of their time and many 
things about their manner of living. But we need 
more than facts, we need imagination to realize fully 
how people lived a thousand or more years ago. The 
men and women who dwelt in oldest England were 
the ancestors of the English people of to-day. They 
Avere not their great-grandfathers, however, nor yet 
their great-great-grandfathers. One would need to 
repeat the word *'great" twenty or thirty times be- 
fore one arrived at a name which reached far enough 
back to apply to the Englishmen who lived in Eng- 
land in the times of King Alfred. But though these 
founders of the English race lived so many genera- 
tions ago, it would be a great mistake to think of 
them as altogether savage and uncivilized. They 
knew nothing about electricity and steam engines and 
airships, and many other remarkable inventions that 
we know about. It is well to remember, however, that 
the real test of a people's civilization is not to be 
found in the amount of machinery they possess, but 
in the thoughts and affections which go to make up 
their characters. And different as the surroundings 
of their lives were from our own, as one comes to 

vii 



PREFACE 

know these Englishmen of oldest England better, one 
sees that after all they were laying the foundations of 
character which Englishmen to-day are still building 
upon. They were learning" how to live peaceably and 
justly with each other, how to conquer the bad sides 
of their natures and how to cultivate the good. They 
never learned to do this completely, but for that we 
dare not judge them harshly, since their descendants 
to-day still have many lessons of charity and justice to 
learn. The world grows better slowly but surely, and 
a thousand years in the life of a nation is not a long 
time. It is well, therefore, that we should know as 
much about the past of our race as we can, and that 
we should go back in our study of its history as far 
as possible. For the more we know about the past, 
the more certainly we shall be able to judge of the 
present and to plan for the future. 

The illustrations at the heads of chapters which 
represent scenes from country life for the various sea- 
sons of the year are reproduced from an English 
manuscript of the eleventh century, as are several 
illustrations in the text. The colored illustrations are 
reproduced by permission from the excellent historical 
pictures by Mr. H. J. Ford. 

New York^ 19 12. 



vni 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER TAGE 

Preface . vii 

I. How THE English Came to England i 

11. The First English Homes . . , 12 

III. How THE English Became Chris- 

tians 25 

IV. The First Poet ...... 45 

V. The Venerable Bede 52 

VI. The Vikings in England ... 63 

VII. Alfred the Great 73 

VIII. Stories About King Alfred ... 87 

IX. Farthest North 94 

X. The Battle of Brunanburg . . 102 

XI. The Abbot OF Glastonbury . . . 115 

XII. A Lesson in Latin 126 

XIII. The Two Harolds ..... 138 

XIV. The End of Oldest England . . 150 



IX 




IN OLDEST ENGLAND 



HOW THE ENGLISH CAME TO ENGLAND 



This book tells the story of the beginnings of the 
English people. It tells how, a thousand years before 
Columbus discovered America, a few tribes of bold 
sea-rovers sailed away in their ships from their old 
home in the northwestern part of Germany, how they 
came to the island of Britain, and how they gradually 
built up a new and great nation in the country which 
they conquered. They were few in numbers and 
weak when they first settled in Britain, but from these 
small beginnings the whole of the British Empire, 
with colonies that now encircle the globe, has devel- 
oped. And not only the British Empire, but also the 
great American Republic, must seek for its beginnings 
in the conquests of this little band of adventurers who 
first landed on the English coast fifteen hundred years 
ago. Wherever the English speech is now spoken, in 
London or in Calcutta, in Cape Town or in Montreal, 
in Boston or in San Francisco, there the people are 
held together by the strong bonds of kinship, and still 
more by the fact that they all inherit many of their 

1- 



2 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

laws and customs from the humble and long-past be- 
ginnings of the race in oldest England. 

Long before the English came to Britain, the island 
was know^n to men, and its fertile parts were culti- 
vated, its tin mines w^ere worked, and its cities were 
crowded with busy people. The English first came 
to England as emigrants and settlers, and then finally 
as conquerors, in the same way that the Americans 
first came to America. But there was a great differ- 
ence between England before the English came to 
that country and America before the Pilgrim fathers 
landed at Plymouth and the southern colonists landed 
at Jamestown. For England was not then occupied, 
as America was at the time of its settlement, by a 
race of rude and uncivilized savages. On the con- 
trary, when the English first came to England, the 
country was inhabited by a much more highly civilized 
people than the English themselves were. It was a 
province of the Romans, one of the most highly civil- 
ized peoples the world has ever known. For nearly 
five centuries the Romans had been masters there, 
and they were a rich and powerful people. In the days 
of the Romans the island naturally was not called 
England, because this is a name which comes from 
the name of the English people. The Romans spoke 
the Latin language, and therefore the name they gave 
to the island was the Latin w'ord Britannia, from 
which comes our modern name of Britain. 

The famous Roman general, Julius Csesar. was one 
of the first of the Romans to come to Britain. He 



HOW THE ENGLISH CAME 




4 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

brought over an army from Gaul, where he was 
waging war, in the summer of 55 B. C, and another 
again in the following summer, and from the time 
of these first visits of Julius Caesar, the island of 
Britain became subject to the great Roman Empire. 
Gradually the Romans built strong forts here and 
there to keep the country in order. They also built 
roads leading- from one section of the country to an- 
other, some parts of which are in use to this present 
day; and they built towns, also, at advantageous 
places, and villas and temples and baths such as they 
were familiar with in Italy. Roman ships came to 
British harbors, carrying away grain, tin, wool and 
other products of the land, and leaving in exchange 
wane, building materials and manufactured articles 
from the home country. 

For four hundred years Britain was a busy and 
strongly defended Roman colony. Then suddenly all 
this Roman civilization in Britain came to an end; 
and the reason was this very simple one, that the 
Roman Empire was no longer able to keep soldiers 
in its colonies to protect them. At the beginning of 
the fifth century, the Roman Empire was almost as 
wide as the known world. Its colonies stretched from 
Britain, the most western part of Europe, across the 
Continent, including Germany, Gaul or France, and 
Spain, and even beyond the limits of Europe into 
Asia. Wherever there was prospect of gain or glory, 
there the Roman soldier had penetrated, bringing with 
him his Roman eagle and establishing the rights of 
Roman citizenship. To defend all these scattered pos- 



HOW THE ENGLISH CAME 5 

sessions, the Romans had built up a vast and costly 
military system. Roman civilization always followed 
in the wake of the Roman legions, and the legions 
always remained to protect the Roman citizens. 

Such was the state of Rome's greatness when, sud- 
denly and unexpectedly, the mighty empire was at- 
tacked where it least expected it.' It was attacked at 
its very heart, at the city of Rome itself. From the 




A Roman Commemorative Tablet 

forests and fastnesses of northern Europe, remote 
and barbarous regions that had never been entered 
by the Roman legionaries, hordes of eager, greedy, 
relentless Huns and Vandals poured down over the 
Alps and on the fertile plains of northern Italy. Hur- 
riedly the Empire answered to the call of danger and 
summoned home now this legion, now that from the 
outlying colonies. But the danger at home instead of 
lessening grew greater and greater, until finally the 
city of Rome itself was entered and sacked by the 
barbarians. In this state of affairs plainly the only 



6 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

thing for the Romans to do was to give up their col- 
onies and concentrate all their forces for the defense 
of Italy. The legions in Britain were called home, 
and the Emperor Honorius, in the year 410, wrote a 
letter to the people of Britain, saying that Rome could 
do nothing for them, and that they must henceforth 
care for their own defense. 

Now who were the enemies that the people of 
Britain w^re thus told to defend themselves against? 
They were none other than the descendants of the 
original inhabitants of Britain who had held the is- 
land before the coming of the Romans. These orig- 
inal nations were of the Celtic race, and it was only 
after long and bitter fighting with them that the Ro- 
mans had managed to get a firm foothold on British 
soil. And they never succeeded in completely con- 
quering and exterminating the Celts. Some of the 
Celts doubtless settled down in the Roman towns and 
became either Roman slaves or Roman citizens; but 
by far the greater number fled into the inaccessible 
mountainous regions of Wales and of Scotland, and 
there they defended their homes and their freedom 
during all the time the Romans were in Britain. The 
Romans built great walls in the north of Britain, all 
the way across the land, from one seacoast to the 
other, to keep back their Celtic enemies, and the chief 
business of the Roman legions, so long as they re- 
mained in Britain, was to protect the people of the 
towns from the attacks of these barbarous but cour- 
ageous Celts. 

With the departure of the Roman legions, the Celts 



HOW THE ENGLISH CAME 7 

immediately began to swarm down from their moun- 
tain retreats in Scotland and Wales upon the towns 
and plains of the Romanized parts of Britain. In the 
four hundred years of their rule in Britain the Ro- 
mans had become a rich and luxurious people, and the 
starved Celts from the mountains were eager to get 
their hands on some of the Roman plunder. What 
now were the Roman inhabitants of Britain to do? 
They were not fighters; they had always left that for 
the legions to do. They made appeal after appeal to 
Rome, ''the groans of the Britons" they were called. 
They told how the barbarians from the mountains 
drove them down to the sea, and how the sea drove 
them back into the hands of the barbarians, and on 
either side they found nothing but death. But Rome 
had all she could do to attend to her own affairs, and 
the groans of the Britons received no answer. 

At last, in an evil hour for them, the Britons 
thought of a way out of their difficulties. They 
thought of a remedy which, though they little knew 
it, was in the end to prove far worse than their dis- 
ease. In a word, their remedy was this : They had 
long been familiar with the warlike prowess of cer- 
tain tribes of north Germany, for these tribes had 
occasionally attempted to make piratical attacks upon 
Britain. They had always been driven back by the 
legionaries, but the Roman Britons had thus learned 
that these barbarous Teutons knew how to fight, even 
though they were unfamiliar with Roman methods 
and Roman military discipline. In the difficult posi- 
tion in which they were now placed, the thoughts of 



8 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

the poor Britons turned to these German tribes and 
they decided to invite them to come over to England 
to help them subdue the Celts. Vortigern was the 
name of the ruler of the Roman Britons at this time, 
and he it was who sent the invitation over to the 
Continent. 

Vortigern's invitation was readily accepted by the 
Teutons, for fighting was the main business of their 
lives. Under the leadership of two captains, one 
named Hengest and the other Horsa, the first com- 
panies of them came over to Britain in the year 449, 
and landed on the island of Thanet, near the coast of 
Kent. For a time they were true to their agreement 
with the Britons. They fought with them against 
the Celts and helped to drive the Celts back into their 
mountain fastnesses. But in the meantime the Teu- 
tons were looking about and observing things for 
themselves. Their own country was not to be com- 
pared with what they saw here in Britain. They won- 
dered at the richness of this land, with its fertile 
fields and luxurious cities, and then at the weakness 
of the people who owned it, but were not strong 
enough to protect it. Finally they said to themselves 
that there was no reason why they should not pos- 
sess all this wealth as their own. Immediately they 
sent back word to their friends and kinsmen on the 
Continent that they should come over and help them, 
and that together they would share the rich booty. 
The plot was completely successful. The Teutonic 
people did come over from their Continental home in 
greater numbers, and combining forces with those al- 



HOW THE ENGLISH CAME - 9 

ready in Britain, they fought against both Britons and 
Celts. 

These Teutonic invaders came mainly from three 
tribes— the Angles, the Jutes and the Saxons. Their 
home on the Continent had been in the northwestern 




The Old Homes of the English 
part of Germany and in Jutland, which is now part of 
the kingdom of Denmark, and they not only lived 
near to each other, but were closely related in blood. 
They were members of the great Teutonic race which 
already at that time was spread over all central and 
northern Europe. And since the Angles and Saxons 
were the two most important of these tribes, these 



10 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Teutonic invaders of Britain are often grouped to- 
gether under the general name of Anglo-Saxons. But 
a better name for them is the Enghsh, for this is the 
name by which they soon learned to call themselves 
after they had settled down in Britain, and the 
name by which their descendants have been known 
ever since. And then their land, too, was called 
England, or /'land of the Angles," as it is to this 
day. 

But before all this took place the Angles and Jutes 
and Saxons had to wrest this land out of the hands 
of the Britons and Celts. These two peoples, the 
Britons and Celts, who before had been deadly ene- 
mies, now made common cause against the common 
foe. United they proved to be almost a match for the 
invaders. Battle after battle was fought, and now 
one side was victorious and now the other. Accord- 
ing to old legends, the Britons were led by their 
greatest warrior, King Arthur. Unfortunately, very 
little is known about King Arthur that can be re- 
garded as fact. Many stories have grown up around 
his name, stories of his knights and of his Round 
Table, and of all his own adventures. But these 
stories and romances were not told until a much later 
date than the time at which he was engaged in trying 
to protect Britain from the attacks of the heathen 
Angles and Saxons. All we really know is that there 
was a King Arthur, that he fought courageously 
against the enemies of his country, but that he failed 
in the end, and that both Roman and Celtic Britain 
passed into the hands of the Teutonic invaders from 




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HOW THE ENGLISH CAME ii 

the Continent, in the possession of whose descendants 
it has remained ever since. 

Thus it was that the English, a rude and uncivilized 
race, still worshiping their heathen gods and god- 
desses, left their old homes in northern Germany for 
what seemed to them a happier and better country. 
They came over first to help the Britons, but they re- 
mained to help themselves. Might made right for 
them ; they were thorough barbarians, caring nothing 
for all the refinements and luxuries of life with which 
the Romans had surrounded themselves. They came 
as destroyers, and before their fierce onslaughts the 
whole structure of Roman civilization in Britain went 
to pieces. And the story of the English in England is 
the story of how they gradually and slowly built up 
a new civilization of their own to take the place of 
that which they destroyed. 




II 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 



If the first Teutonic invaders of Britain who came 
over in the time of Hengest and Horsa were given 
their proper name, they would have to be called 
pirates, for pirates they were to all intents and pur- 
poses. They came to Britain with no other intention 
than to carry off as much plunder as possible. They 
knew^ no law except the law of might, and a rich peo- 
ple who were weak, like the Britons, seemed fair game 
to them. At first, when they had filled their ships 
with booty, they sailed back to their old homes on 
the Continent, there to enjoy it. After a time, how- 
ever, it occurred to them that they might take the 
lands of the Britons as well as their other possessions, 
and so they changed from mere marauders and plun- 
derers to permanent settlers in the country. 

As they settled down in their new homes, the Eng- 
lish brought over with them all the customs and hab- 
its with which they had been familiar in north Ger- 
many. They paid very little attention to the Britons, 
except to drive them out or to make slaves of them, 

12 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 13 

and consequently, although the Britons were much 
more highly civilized than were these first barbarous 
English, the English learned very little from them. 
The Romans had built large towns, with high brick 
or stone walls around them, and in these towns they 
had cultivated all the arts and luxuries of town life. 
But the English did not like to live in towns. Like 
their ancestors in the German forests, they preferred 
to live scattered and apart, wherever a spring or a 
grove or an open field or some other natural ad- 
vantage struck their fancy. Thus the old Roman 
towns fell into neglect and soon became waste and 
desolate. It was only after a long time that some of 
them, like the town of Chester, where the Roman 
walls are still to be seen, were occupied again; but 
most of the old Roman towns were deserted and aban- 
doned, and if they have not completely disappeared, 
have left only scanty ruins to mark their sites. 

Neither did the early English use brick and stone in 
building their houses, as the Romans had done. The 
first English houses were rudely and roughly con- 
structed, not because the English could not have had 
better houses, but because it had not yet occurred to 
them that they needed better. The roof was covered 
with a thatch, and since all the rest of the building 
was made of wood, and since the fire was built right 
in the center of the room, with a hole in the roof for 
the smoke to escape, burning down was the usual fate 
of old English houses. This, however, was not such a 
terrible disaster, since it was comparatively easy to 
build another house. There was not a great deal of 



14 



IN OLDEST ENGLAND 



difference between the houses of the rich and the poor, 
and the house of a king or a prince differed from that 
of a man in more humble station mainly in being some- 
what larger. Luxuries were not to be had among the 
earliest English, no matter how rich or powerful you 
were. 

The early English did not like to live close together, 
but instead each family, or a small group of families, 




A Saxon House 



went off by itself to the place it liked best. In build- 
ing homes for themselves these separate families, or 
small tribes, arranged everything about a main cen- 
tral building called ''the hall." Li the hall the men 
feasted and boasted of their deeds of prowess and 
listened to the songs of their minstrels. Every fam- 
ily or tribe had at its head a leader, or atheling, as he 
was called, who was the lord of the hall and who was 
followed wherever he went by his supporters and 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 15 

those who helped in the defense of his home. These 
followers of the atheling were usually 3^ounger and 
unmarried warriors, and they were known as the athel- 
ing's companions or thanes. Now, when these com- 
panions were not off with the atheling fighting, they 
lived in the hall, sleeping or hunting, or otherwise 
amusing themselves by day, and feasting and drinking 
and listening to the songs of the minstrel by night. 
Fox the serious business of these thanes was fighting, 
and that was the only work in life which they consid- 
ered equal to their dignity. It was the duty of the 
atheling to see to it that they were provided with food 
and clothing, as well as with sword and shield and 
coat of linked mail, and all the other necessities of a 
well-armed soldier. The atheling is thus often called 
by the poets "the dispenser of treasure," or ''the giver 
of rings," since in the very earliest times the money 
of the English was not made into coins, but was 
twisted into rings or bracelets. The atheling's throne 
was for the same reason called ''the gift-stool," and 
there was no worse reputation for an atheling to have 
than that of being stingy. On the other hand, the 
atheling's companions had certain standards which 
they also had to live up to. Above all they must be 
brave and must follow their atheling wherever he led 
them. The greatest disgrace that could befall an 
atheling's companion was to come out of a battle alive 
in which his leader had been slain. It was the thane's 
duty to fight beside his atheling as long as his atheling 
was living, and after that to continue fighting to 
avenge his atheling's death and to keep him company 



t6 



IN OT.DKST KNGT.AND 



to the bitter end on the field of battle. Thus it hai> 
pened that in early English times a fight to the finish 
meant a fight which could end only with the extermi- 
nation of one of the two sides. ''Now that my lord 
has fallen," says one of the heroes in the poem on the 
Battle of Maldon, ''steadfast warriors at home shall 
not twit me with words, saying that I turned from the 
battle ; but the weapon shall take me, the steel with its 




Feasting in the Hall 



point." And thus these warriors fought on, until one 
after the other fell, and all lay, as the poem says, 
"thane-like beside their lord." 

The hall was the center of the early Englishman's 
home, and around it were clustered various buildings 
for the use of the other members of his tribe or fam- 
ily. There was first of all the bower, in which the 
atheling's wife lived with her attendant women, as 
the atheling and his companions lived in the hall. 
Then there were other buildings in which the slaves 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 17 

and servants dwelt, stables for the horses, cattle and 
swine, storehouses for the grain and other food, and 
all the many buildings and implements which people 
need when they have only themselves to depend on for 
the necessities of life. The whole group of buildings, 
hall, bower, slave quarters, and all, was then sur- 
rounded by a stockade, with an entrance gate, to pro- 
tect it against sudden attack, and the whole was called 
"a town." Now the word town meant first of all 
merely a stockade, and the earliest English towns con- 
sisted of nothing more than the group of buildings be- 
longing to an atheling's household. Only gradually 
and slowly, as a number of people came to live to- 
gether within the same stockade, did anything like our 
modern notion of a town or city come into being. 

Within the stockade v^'hich surrounded the athel- 
ing's buildings, it was an interesting and varied life 
which the people lived. The chief work of the athel- 
ing and his companions, as has been said, was to do 
the fighting for the family, and when they were not 
away on some expedition, they spent their time at 
home enjoying themselves in the hall. But the other 
people of "the town" had plenty to do to provide 
themselves and the warriors with food and clothine 
and other necessary things. They had to care for the 
cattle and other live stock on the atheling's lands ; they 
had to till the soil, spin the flax into linen and the 
wool into cloth, bake the bread and roast the meat, 
and above all, brew the ale which was needed in such 
quantities for the nightly feasts that took place in the 
great hall. Everything had to be done at home, for 



i8 



IN OLDEST ENGLAND 



there were no markets to go to and no stores with 
obHging keepers eager to exchange their wares for 
money. In fact, there was very Httle money of any 
kind in the country, and if you were an atheHng's 
thane, you fought for your atheHng not mainly for 
money, but for your place in the hall at the atheling's 
table; and if you were a poor man or a slave, you 
toiled for the atheling, again not for payment in 




Anglo-Saxon Carriages 



money, but for bed and board and protection from 
other athelings, and for the little share of the luxuries 
of life that might happen to come to such humble 
people. 

Usually an atheling gained his position because he 
was an exceptionally strong and brave man. It was 
easy for a good leader to gather a number of com- 
panions about him, and then he was ready to go out 
in search of the place where he wanted to live. If he 
found somebody else already living there, then it was 
a question as to which of the two was the stronger. 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 19 

Having- chosen or seized a place in which to settle, 
gradually the atheling built up his town and prepared 
to defend it against all other athelings. It did not 
take the English long to realize, however, that this 
way of living, whereby each atheling was com- 
pletely independent and self-protecting, was not the 
best way. They soon found out that strength comes 
from union, and that they needed some rules and laws 
by which to govern themselves. They accordingly did 
two things ; they established a parliament, or a legisla- 
ture, which they called ''the meeting of the wise men," 
and they elected kings for themselves. Now the kings 
that were chosen were elected by the free consent of 
the athelings, and it was usually the most powerful of 
the athelings who was selected to be king. The king 
did not have any absolute power, but he could do only 
what the meeting of the wise men permitted him to 
do. And if at any time his conduct was not satisfac- 
tory to the wise men, they could remove the king from 
office and elect another atheling in his place. The king 
was usually a rich man with towns at various places, 
and he consequently traveled about a good deal, liv- 
ing now at one of his towns and now at another. 

In the earliest times the English had a large num- 
ber of kings. Any group of athelings who wanted to 
do so could come together and elect a king, the athel- 
ings thus becoming the thanes of the king. Then the 
king and his thanes could go out and fight against 
other kings; if they were successful, thus extending 
the bounds of their kingdom, or, if they were de- 
feated, extendino- the bounds of the other kind's kine- 



20 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

doni. In this way gradually the smaller kingdoms 
were united to the larger and stronger. One of the 
first strong kingdoms to be formed was the kingdom 
of Kent, where the English first landed. Another 
was the kingdom of the \\'est Saxons, south of the 
river Thames. To the north of the Thames a number 
of kingdoms were formed, the largest being the king- 
dom of Northumbria, which was sometimes divided 
into two kingdoms, Deira and Bernicia. Another 
kingdom north of the Thames was the kingdom of 
Mercia, and still another was known as East Anglia. 
At times the king of one of these kingdoms becoming 
stronger than the kings of the other countries, the 
rest pledged a kind of obedience to the strong king. 
But there w-as continual fighting and rivalry, and now 
one king and now another got the upper hand. For 
three centuries after the English first came to England 
this state of affairs existed, until finally Egbert, the 
grandfather of King Alfred, who was king of the 
West Saxons, gained a control over the other kings of 
England which really amounted to something. Grad- 
ually as the other kings died, no one was elected to 
succeed them, and beginning with King Alfred the 
English have had not many kings, but one king. Thus 
in Alfred's time the whole country was united into 
one, and all people who called themselves English ac- 
knowledged the authority of one king. Alfred's laws 
were also acknowledged by all the English, and so at 
last these English who had started out practically as 
lawless pirates, each independent of the other, in the 
end banded together and worked out a s}stcm of law 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 21 

and government which has remained in force, chang- 
ing and growing, to the present day. 

When the English came to England they brought 
little with them besides their ships, their swords and 
their shields. They brought no books and no means 
of making books. For writing was to them practically 
an unknown art. They could carve runic letters on 
tablets of wood, or on stone, or on the blade of a 
sword, but no one ever thought of sitting down and 
writing a book with a pen. Instead of written books, 
however, they had spoken books. The minstrels could 
tell long stories about the deeds of the older heroes of 
the race, how Beowailf killed the dragon, and how this 
hero was slain here and that one there. This was the 
only kind of history they knew. Men remembered 
what their fathers had told them, and thus from fa- 
ther to son the lore of the folk was passed on by 
word of mouth. Not the least important part of this 
lore was the religion which the English brought with 
them to England. This was a religion which for 
generations had been practiced by the Teutons in the 
forests of Germany. It was a heathen religion, and 
instead of one God, it worshiped at the altars of 
many gods. One of the greatest of these gods was 
named Thor, the god of w^ar. The English gave him 
a special day, and that is how the fifth day of the week 
gets its name, Thor's da}^ Another powerful god 
was named Woden, and he also gives his name to a 
day of the w^eek, Woden's day becoming Wednesday. 
The Teutons also worshiped a goddess named Freia, 
and from her name we get the word Friday. In the 



22 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

same way the name Tuesday comes from the name of 
a heathen god. But these are only a few of the many 
Teutonic gods and goddesses. Ahnost every spring 
and every grove was supposed to have its own special 
divinity. The early English were very simple and 
childlike in their faith ; almost like savages, they be- 
lieved that spirits dwelt in trees and stones and in all 
the forms of nature. Priests were chosen to care for 
the ceremonies of their religion, but these ceremonies 
were all simple and rude. Among others, there was 
this great difference between the priests of the 
heathen religion and the priests of the Christian re- 
ligion with which the English were soon to become 
acquainted, that the heathen priests were not learned 
men themselves, and so could not become teachers and 
leaders of the people as the Christian priests later be- 
came. The temples and altars which the first English 
consecrated for the uses of their heathen religion were 
likewise very rude affairs. These places of worship 
were probably not much more than little wooden huts, 
very roughly and crudely ornamented. In these tem- 
ples the shrines or altars were placed, and the whole 
was surrounded by a kind of fence, forming thus a 
sacred inclosure. The heathen English had two main 
purposes in worshiping their gods. The first was the 
wish to pacify them because the worshipers were 
afraid of them. They thought of their gods as pow- 
erful beings who, when angry, brought about all sorts 
of loss and misfortune. By all means, therefore, it 
was advisable to keep on the safe side of the gods. 
The second purpose which they had in worshiping 



THE FIRST ENGLISH HOMES 



'^-j 



J 



their gods was to get something out of them. Being 
very powerful, the gods could give very rich gifts, if 
they felt so inclined. If you wished your fields to 
raise big crops, you must make an offering to the gods 
who had charge of fields and crops. When your bees 
were about to swarm, it was advisable to intercede 
with the gods of the bees that the swarm mig-ht not 




Saxon Horsemen 

go too far from home. If some of your cattle had 
strayed away or had been stolen, the gods were to be 
called upon to help bring them back again. If you 
had a sudden pain in the side, you might know that 
an evil spirit of some kind had lodged itself there. 
Whatever happened the heathen English were con- 
vinced that some god or other had a hand in it, and 
the main uses of their religion were to ward off the 
anger of these gods and to secure their good will. 
Half-civilized as they were at the time of their first 



24 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

coming to England, the English were not altogether 
without good qualities. They were fond of fighting, 
and were not much troubled by scruples of conscience 
when they saw a chance to gain possession of their 
enemies' property. But they were brave as lions and 
loyal to each other, and they followed their leaders 
faithfully and unselfishly. They knew little about 
books and writing or about the deeper mysteries of 
life. But the reason for this was that they had had 
very little opportunity of learning. And when, with 
the coming of the Roman missionaries to England, 
they were finally given the chance to learn and to work 
out better ways of living, the readiness with which 
they accepted the new teaching proves that their minds 
were prepared for it. By the end of the second cen- 
tury after they had come to England as a wild and bar- 
barous race, the English had accepted Christianity and 
had developed a peaceful and settled government of 
their own. And by the end of the third century they 
began to send forth from their schools teachers, like 
Bede and Alcuin, who w^ere not only known in Eng- 
land, but whose fame was equal to that of any of the 
great men of Europe in that day. 




Ill 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 



On a certain day something over a hundred years 
after the EngHsh had settled in England, and when 
Rome was again mistress of herself, though now 
shorn of much of her greatness through the loss of 
her colonies, a thoughtful but kindly looking man 
might have been seen wandering through the streets 
of the Eternal City. He was humbly dressed, like a 
monk, but wherever he passed he was followed by 
glances of love and veneration. In his aimless wan- 
derings, he finally came to the market place of the 
city. The square was filled with buyers and sellers, 
and where the walks were not crowded with people, 
they were blocked with great heaps of merchandise 
from all corners of the earth. But apparently this 
monk had not come to the market to buy. He amused 
himself by glancing at the display of wares which the 
merchants had cunningly set out to catch the eye, but 
none were cunning enough to tempt him to the desire 
of possession. 

25 



26 IX OLDEST ENGLAND 

At length, however, the monk came to something 
in the market which did arrest his attention. He came 
to that part of the market where slaves were sold, 
and there was a dealer with a group of slave boys 
whom he was offering up for sale. The monk stopped 
and gazed pityingly at the boys. They were all 
strong, sturdy lads, with fair complexions, light yel- 
low hair, and the bluest of blue eyes, in every way dif- 
ferent from the brown cheeks and brown eyes and 
black hair that one usually saw in the streets of Rome. 
The monk looked at the boys kindly for some time, 
and then he turned to the dealer and asked him what 
religion these boys followed. When the dealer told 
him that they were heathen, then the monk sighed and 
said: ''Alas, that the prince of darkness should have 
power over such bright faces!" And then he said to 
the dealer, "What is the name of the race to which 
they belong?" "They are Angles," the dealer an- 
swered. And then the monk, playing on the words, 
said, "They are well named Angles, for they have 
Angels' faces. And what is the name of the country 
from which they come?" The dealer replied, "Their 
country is called Deira."* Now this word looks as 
though it was made up of the two Latin words, cicy 
meaning "from," and ira, meaning "wrath." But 
of course it is not, and the resemblance is merely ac- 
cidental. "Good again," replied the monk, who of 
course spoke in Latin, "their country is called Deira, 
because they shall be saved from wrath, and be 

* This was the name of one of the kingdoms of northern 
England. 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 27 

brought into God's mercy. And now tell me, what is 
their king's name?" "His name is Alle," was the 
dealer's answer. And at that the monk, still playing 
on words, cried out, ''Then shall his people learn to 
sing Alleluia in honor of God their Creator." Hav- 
ing learned all the slave-dealer could tell him about the 
pretty English boys, the monk passed on his way, but 
not, as will be seen, to forget what he had just heard 
and beheld. 

Now the name of this monk was Gregory, and he 
was a well-known person in Rome. Though now he 
dressed himself in the poorest of garments and ate 
but the plainest of fare, this had not always been 
the kind of life he had lived. For he was the son of a 
rich and noble Roman, and in his youth had taken 
great pleasure in adorning himself with costly silks 
and satins and with all manner of precious jewels. 
But suddenly his eyes were opened to the poverty and 
sorrow that surrounded him on every side. With 
Gregory to see w^as to act, and straightway he turned 
all his riches to the service of the poor and to the 
building of monasteries where monks might be trained 
for the service of God and of man. Gregory himself 
went to live in one of these monasteries, and he was 
as simple in his life and as earnest in good works as 
the humblest of them all. Every day he provided a 
dinner for twelve poor men, himself waiting on the 
men and caring for their needs ; and a legend tells us 
that one time Gregory found thirteen at his table, and 
that day he had an angel as his guest. 

As he walked along the streets of the city Gregory 



28 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

could not put the picture of the poor slave boys out of 
his mind, and for days he thought of them continu- 
ally. At last he went to the Pope of Rome, whose 
name was Pelagius, and begged that he might be al- 
lowed to go as a missionary to these distant and be- 
nighted English. After much persuasion, Pelagius 
finally gave his consent, and Gregory prepared to set 
out. Gregory had already started on his w^ay, and w^as 
outside the city before the Romans heard of his de- 
parture. When the news had spread abroad, how^- 
ever, they were so troubled and grieved that they 
came in great excitement to the Pope and, declaring 
that Rome could not spare so wise and helpful a per- 
son as Gregory in these times of suffering and danger, 
they begged that Gregory might be called back to the 
city. Messengers were quickly sent after Gregory, 
and, obedient to the commands of the Pope, gave up 
his mission and returned to Rome. As it happened, 
not long after this Pelagius died, and then Gregory 
himself w^as made Pope, being the first Roman Pope 
of that name. 

At the time w^hen Gregory w^as chosen for this high 
honor, Rome was suffering greatly from sickness and 
famine, and all of Gregory's attention w-as taken up 
with the care of his people. As soon, however, as he 
could free himself somewhat from these burdens, Greg- 
ory's thoughts returned to his old plan of establish- 
ing a mission among the English. As he w^as now^ 
Pope, it was of course impossible for him to go in per- 
son, and the best he could do therefore was to send 
somebody in his place. The person he chose to be his 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 29 

missionary to the English was Augustine. A number 
of other monks were appointed to go with Augustine 
and to help him in his mission. It was in the early 
spring of 596 that this little band of teachers and 
preachers set out from Rome on their long journey. 
They traveled slowly overland, as was the custom in 
those days, and it was not until after Easter of the 
year 597 that they set foot on English soil. They 
landed on the island of Thanet, the very island where, 
a century and a half before, Hengest and Horsa had 
first touched British shores with the first ships bearing 
Englishmen to England. 

Augustine had a very good reason for choosing the 
island of Thanet as his first landing place in England. 
For this island belonged to the kingdom of Kent, 
which at this time was ruled by King Ethelbert, and 
Augustine hoped that King Ethelbert would lend a 
willing ear to his message. The reason for his hope 
was the fact that King Ethelbert, although a heathen, 
was apparently only a lukewarm heathen, since he had 
married a Christian wife. Her name was Bertha, and 
she was the daughter of the King of Paris. When 
Ethelbert married Bertha he agreed that she should be 
free to practice her own religion, and he of course 
claimed the same right for himself. Queen Bertha 
had made no attempt to persuade the English to give 
up their heathen gods, but Augustine now counted on 
her help in getting a favorable hearing from King 
Ethelbert. 

As soon as Augustine had landed on Thanet, he 
sent a messenger to the mainland, to the town of Can- 



30 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

lerbury, which was the capital of the kingdom of 
Kent, annonncing- to Ethelbert that strangers had 
come to his land, bearing an important and precious 
message from Rome. In answer to this the King 
sent back word that Augustine and his men should 
remain on the island of Thanet, and that they would 
be supplied with all they needed. Several days later 
Ethelbert and his counselors crossed over to Thanet 
from the mainland to hear the message that had been 
brought to them. Ethelbert knew that they had come 
to tell him about a God who was different from the 
English gods, and fearing they might try to use some 
magic arts on him, he demanded that the meeting 
should be held in the open air, where there could be 
no chance of deception. Augustine readily agreed to 
this, and when all had been arranged, he began and 
preached to Ethelbert, explaining to him all the whole 
story of the creation of the world by God and of its 
redemption by Christ, and expounding the many other 
details of the Christian religion as it was then taught 
by the Church of Rome. When he had finished, 
Ethelbert answered very discreetly and wisely. "Many 
fair things you have told us," said he, ''and beautiful 
are the promises of this religion ; but what you say is 
all strange and new to us, nor do we yet understand 
the proofs of its truth. We cannot therefore give up 
our old religion and our gods, which we have wor- 
shiped for so long, without further knowledge. But 
since you have come all this long way to tell us what 
you believe to be true, we will not receive you un- 
kindly. You shall have a place to live in and all your 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 31 

wants shall be supplied; and, furthermore, you shall 
be free to bring over to your religion any one that 
you can persuade to come by your teaching." Then 
Augfustine and his followers were taken over to the 
mainland, and a place was assigned to them in Canter- 
bury where they might live and teach any who wanted 
to hear them. So simple and so earnest were these 
missionaries in their teaching and preaching that soon 
many came to listen to their words, and after a time 
Ethelbert himself, having consulted with his counselors 
and having learned more fully what the new religion 
meant, decided to accept the teaching of Augustine. 
He was baptized on the first day of June, in the year 
in which the missionaries came to England, and with 
him a great number of his people accepted the new 
faith. Straightway with Ethelbert's help Augustine 
set to work to organize the church in England, and 
Augustine himself was made Archbishop of the Eng- 
lish. That was the beginning of Christian teaching 
in England, and from that day to this there has al- 
ways been an Archbishop of Canterbury at the head 
of the English Church. 



II 



Successful as Augustine's mission was, it was only 
the beginning of the conversion of the English. For 
Ethelbert was only king of Kent, and though he was 
one of the most powerful of the English kings, there 
were large regions of England over which he had no 
authority. All the northern part of England espe- 



3-2 



IN OLDEST ENGLAND 



cially was governed by its own kings, and the kingdom 
of Deira, from which had come the slave boys that first 
suggested to Gregory the plan of sending a mission 
to the English, remained heathen for a long time after 
the arrival of Augustine and his monks. There was 
much fighting among the various kings of northern 
England, or Northumbria, as the region is called, and 




Saxon Warriors 

it happened that at one time a certain powerful king 
saw a chance of seizing possession of the kingdom of 
Deira. When Alle, the king of the Deirans, died, this 
hostile king entered the country with his forces and 
drove out Alle's young son Edwin and made himself 
king of Deira. Edwin was carried away by his 
friends and taken to the court of King Radwald, who 
then was ruler of another province of England known 
as East Anglia. Here Edwin lived until he grew up, 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 33 

and then his troubles began again; for the king of 
Northumbria, who had usurped the throne of Edwin's 
father, sent word to King Radwald that he must take 
his choice of two things: he must either give up Ed- 
win to him, in which case he should have a liberal re- 
ward of gold and treasure, or if he refused to do this, 
he must prepare to meet the Northumbrians in battle. 

Now Radwald was very much troubled to know 
what to do. He had given his promise to Edwin to 
protect him, but he did not want to meet the power- 
ful Northumbrians in battle, and the thought of the 
reward was a sore temptation. It was evening when 
the messengers of the Northumbrians came to Rad- 
wald, and for some time he debated with himself 
what he should do. Fortunately Edwin had a friend 
among the king's counselors, and when this friend 
saw that the king was tempted to break his faith with 
Edwin, he went out, and, finding Edwin, he begged 
him to prepare to fly in order to save his life. But 
Edwin refused. 'Tving Radwald has always treated 
me kindly," said he, "and until I know that he in- 
tends to break his word with me, I shall believe that 
he will not. But if I must die, I would rather die at 
his hands than at those of any meaner man. Here I 
shall stay, for I am as safe here as at any other place 
to which I can go." 

Unable to persuade Edwin to escape, his friend 
went away and Edwin sat down on a stone in front of 
the king's house. His mind was full of sorrow and 
doubt, for he did not know what would be the result 
of the king's deliberations. While he was sitting- 



34 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

there in the darkness, a tall figure suddenly appeared 
before him. ''Why do you sit here," said this strange 
apparition, "while all the rest of the world is sleep- 
ing?" "What is it to you," answered Edwin, 
"whether I sit here or elsewhere?" "Do not be an- 
gry," said the stranger at this, "for I know what it is 
that is troubling you. But now tell me this : what 
will you do for the man who frees you from this 
trouble?" "All I have I will give him," said Edwin. 
"And what if he should promise you that you shall be- 
come a king and that you shall conquer your enemies 
and become one of the greatest of the kings of the 
English? What will you do then?" "My gratitude 
shall not be less than his service," was Edwin's reply. 
"But suppose he should ask you to follow his advice 
and to lead a better and a different kind of life from 
that which vou have known hitherto and from that 
w^hich all your forefathers have known? Will you 
obey him and follow him?" "Yes," answered Ed- 
win, "I will obey him and follow him in everything." 
Then the strange figure placed its right hand on Ed- 
win's head and said, "When this sign is given to you 
again, remember what we have spoken and remember 
to fulfill your promises." With these words the 
stranger disappeared as silently as he had come, and 
soon after Edwin's friend again came out of the 
house and told him joyfully that, cost what it might, 
the king had decided to remain Edwin's true friend 
and protector. 

The king of the Northumbrians now made good his 
threat, and a short time after there was a great battle 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 



0.1 



on the banks of the river Idle between his forces and 
the East AngHans under the leadership of Radwald 
and Edwin. The Northumbrians were defeated, 
their king himself was slain, and so many others here 
lost their lives that the minstrels made a song of it, 
in which they said, "Idle was stained with the blood 
of Angles." 

Edwin was now made king of all Northumbria, in- 
cluding his old kingdom of Deira, and he soon became 
one of the most powerful of the EngHsh kings. He 
still remained a heathen, however, and he soon forgot 
about the strange visitor who had come to him while 
he was sitting alone in the darkness in front of King 
Radwald's house. After some years Edwin wished 
to marry a lady named Ethelburg, who lived in Kent 
and who was the sister of King Ethelbert. Ethelburg 
was of course a Christian, and word was brought ba'ck 
to Edwin that she could not be married to a heathen. 
Then Edwin proposed that Ethelburg should become 
his wife on the condition that she should be free to 
follow her religion, just as Bertha, the wife of Ethel- 
bert, had done before Ethelbert became a Christian. 
This plan was agreed upon, and when Ethelburg came 
to Northumbria to be married to Edwin, she brought 
with her a bishop as her chaplain. His name was 
Paulinus, and we shall presently see that what Augus- 
tine did for the south of England, in the end Paulinus 
did for the north. 

Paulinus soon iound that his progress must be very 
slow in the north. Edwin was a conscientious man 
and thoughtful, but he would do nothing rashly. At 



36 IX OLDEST ENGLAND 

one time, on an Easter eve, Edwin was receiving some 
ambassadors, when suddenly one of them struck at 
him with a poisoned dagger. One of the king's fol- 
lowers, a faithful thane named Lilla, saw the blow 
coming, and darting in front of the king, he received 
the dagger in his own body. He was killed, and the 
dagger passing through Lilla's body even slightly 
wounded the king. That same night a daughter was 
born to Edwin and Ethelburg, and Paulinus, point- 
ing out to Edwin the occasion he had for gratitude be- 
cause of the saving of his life that day and of the 
safe birth of his daughter, begged him now to accept 
Christianity. But Edwin was not yet ready to give 
up the w^orship of his father's gods, although he did 
agree to permit his daughter to be baptized, and he 
promised further that if he was successful in the war 
with the South Saxons, which he was about to under- 
take, he would do as Paulinus wished. 

Edwin was completely successful in his war with 
the South Saxons, but still he put off the time when 
he should be baptized. He listened carefully to the 
teachings of Paulinus and he discussed the matter 
thoroughly with his own wase men. But he could not 
see his way clearly ; he found it very difficult to tell 
just how much of his old heathen religion was wrong 
and how much of this new Christian religion was 
right. He pondered deeply over these matters and 
often sat by himself, lost in thought. One day as he 
sat thus reflecting, Paulinus suddenly appeared be- 
fore him, and placing his right hand on his head, he 
asked solemnlv whether or not Edwin remembered 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 37 

that sign. Edwin was deeply moved at" this, and when 
PauHnus reminded him again of the promise he had 
given to the stranger in the darkness, who apparently 
was none other than Paulinus himself, Edwin declared 
that he was ready to keep his word. 

Soon after this Edwin assembled a meeting of all 
the important nobles and officers of his kingdom in 
order to present to them the question of accepting or 
rejecting the new teaching. When they were all gath- 
ered together, Edwin called upon Paulinus to explain 
again the teachings of his religion concerning the im- 
mortality of the soul, and concerning the Christian 
virtues of faith and charity and good works. When 
he had finished, various people arose and spoke. One 
of these was the chief priest of the heathen religion, 
a worldly-minded man named Coifi. He expressed 
himself as completely dissatisfied with their old re- 
ligion. "I am convinced," he said, ''that the religion 
we have followed hitherto is vain and useless, for no 
one certainly has been more zealous in serving our 
gods than I have been, and yet there are many who 
are more prosperous than I am. Now I know that if 
our gods had any true understanding, they would have 
rewarded me rather than those who have not served 
them so well. My advice is, therefore, if this new re- 
ligion promises to be more profitable than our old 
one, that we accept it." Others in the assembly agreed 
with Coifi, that it would be foolish for them to retain 
their old religion if there was a more powerful one 
to be had. Then another man arose and spoke, and 
he was one who saw more deeply into the true mean- 



38 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

ing of religion. He spoke of the uncertainty of this 
life, of how little we know of what goes before and 
what comes after it, and how great need there is for 
further knowledge. "This life, O King," said he, 
"seems to me like this — as though a sparrow should 
fly in the window while you are feasting on a win- 
ter's night. Within doors it is warm and bright, and 
the fire is blazing in the hall. Without it is dark and 
cold and raining. The sparrow comes in one window 
and flies out of the other. Only for a moment does 
it know the joy and cheer of the hall, just as our life 
is but as the twinkling of an eye compared with eter- 
nity. But out of the darkness and storm the sparrow 
comes, and into the darkness and storm it passes, and 
whence it comes and whither it goes no man knows. 
If then this new teaching can tell us anything of these 
matters, if it can tell us what we should think of this 
life of ours, of what goes before and what comes 
after, let us by all means listen to it." 

Thus one spoke after another, until it seemed quite 
clear that most of them were ready to give up the 
worship of their heathen gods in favor of the teach- 
ings of Paulinus. "Who shall be first," asked the 
king then, "to overthrow our heathen altars and 
shrines, and to destroy the sacred inclosures in which 
our altars are kept ?" "Who more fittingly than I ?" 
answered Coifi. "Let me be the first to overthrow the 
shrines at which, in my ignorance, I have so zealously 
worshiped." Then Coifi mounted the king's war- 
horse, and took a spear in his hand and rode toward 
the place where the altars were stationed. The peo- 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 39 

pie watched him in astonishment and thought he had 
lost his mind, for it was not permitted to priests of 
their religion to bear arms or to ride on anything ex- 
cept a mare. But Coifi rode swiftly forward, and 
when he came to the sacred place, he cast his spear 
at the shrine and afterward set .fire to it and thus de- 
stroyed all the signs of their old worship. 

Thus Northumbria was converted through the 
teachings of Paulinus, as Kent had been through the 
teachings of Augustine. Edwin straightway set to 
work to build a church for Paulinus, and this church 
was built in York, the capital of Deira. Here Edwin 
and many of his people were baptized, and though it 
was a very humble structure when compared with the 
great Minster which now stands in York, this little 
church that Edwin built is important as marking the 
beginnings in the north of the work of civilization 
which was begun at Canterbury in the south. York 
and Canterbury have always been the two centers of 
the life of the English Church, and thus it happens 
that there are two archbishops in England, the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York. 



in 



The course of events, whether in church or in state, 
never ran smooth for very long in the life of oldest 
England, and Edwin and Paulinus soon experienced a 
change of fortune in Northumbria. For a king of an- 
other region of England, who was still a heathen. 



40 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

but who had gained great power, made an attack upon 
the Northumbrians. In a fiercely fought battle the 
Northumbrians were defeated and Edwin himself 
was slain. When the news was brought to York, 
Paulinus and Edwin's queen, together with a few oth- 
ers, hastily fled and managed to escape to Kent, 
where they were safe. Thus then for a time the work 
of teaching and of preaching was interrupted in 
Northumbria, although not for long. For after a 
few years a nephew of Edwin's named Oswald set to 
work to regain the kingdom which his uncle had lost. 
He gathered together a great army at a place which 
to this day is still called St. Oswald's, in the north of 
England, and here he fought a successful battle 
against the heathen conqueror of his country. 

Oswald thus gained control of the kingdom of 
Northumbria, and it was not long before learning and 
civilization began to flourish again. But now Oswald 
did not turn to Kent or to Rome for teachers. He 
sought for help nearer home. In his day there w^ere 
many learned and good men in Ireland, where several 
great schools for the training of teachers and preach- 
ers had grown up. Now when Osw^ald was a young 
boy he had been compelled to save his life by flight, 
and just as Edwin had found a refuge at the court of 
King Radwald in East Anglia, Oswald had fled for 
safety to the Irish school and monastery of lona, 
founded by Saint Columba and situated on an island 
between England and Ireland. This was one of the 
most famous places of learning in all Europe, and 
from lona preachers and teachers went out to the most 



THE ENGLISH BECAAIE CHRISTIANS 41 

distant and the most dangerous countries to carry on 
the good work of converting and civilizing the heathen 
barbarians. Here Oswald spent some years, and while 
he was living and studying with them, he learned to 
have the highest respect for his Irish teachers. 

Now, when Oswald had become king of Northum- 
bria, his thoughts naturally turned to his old friends 
at lona. He sent over to them and asked them to 
appoint a bishop of the Northumbrians who might 
continue the work that Paulinus had begun. The 
monks of lona considered the matter carefully, and 
finally chose one of their number for the honorable 
but somewhat difficult position. The man whom they 
chose went over to Northumbria, but he stayed only 
a short time, explaining to the monks when he got 
back that he could do no good to a people as wild as 
the Northumbrians were. The monks were greatly 
disappointed at the weakness of the man they had 
chosen, and they debated back and forth for a long 
time as to what should now be done. At length a 
certain one of the monks arose, and speaking to 
the returned bishop, he said: 'Tt seems to me, my 
brother, that you have treated these ignorant men 
of Northumbria too severely. Would it not be bet- 
ter to do as the apostle tells us, to make our teaching 
easy at first, and thus pass on little by little to the 
deeper things?" And so he continued, describing the 
way he thought the Northumbrians should be taught. 
When he had finished, all the monks declared that 
this man was the very person to undertake the mission 
to the Northumbrians, and he was accordingly made a 



42 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

bishop and was straightway sent over to King Os- 
w^ald. Now, the name of this Irish monk was Aidan, 
and that is a name which well deserves to be remem- 
bered, together with the names of Augustine and of 
Paulinus. For, although Paulinus w^as the first to 
carry the message to those Deirans that Pope 
Gregory was so anxious to reach, it was Aidan who 
continued and completed the work which seemed to 
be altogether destroyed at the death of Edwin. 

Aidan did not find the Northumbrians wild and 
unmanageable, but on the contrary, ready and even 
eager to listen to his teachings. So simple and so 
kindly were the words he had to say to them, that 
everywhere he went they flocked around to hear him. 
At first Aidan had to speak in Irish, for he knew 
no English, and Oswald then translated what he said. 
But Aidan soon learned English, and then he trav- 
eled about, always on foot, through all Northumbria, 
preaching everywhere. Aidan did not live usually at 
York, but with fond memories of his old island home 
at lona, he established a monastery and school on a 
small island just off the coast of Northumbria. This 
island was called Lindisfarne, and from the school 
that grew up here many a teacher went out to teach 
not only in England but in other countries as well. 
In every way possible Oswald helped Aidan in his 
work, and it would be hard to say which of the two 
was the more earnest in doing good. The story is 
told that one Easter Sunday Aidan w^as sitting at 
dinner with Oswald when a large silver dish w^as set 
on the table, filled with meat for their dinner. Aidan 



THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS 43 

blessed the food, and they were about to begin to eat 
when the king's officer who had charge of his alms 
came into the room and said that a number of poor 
people from the country about were standing in the 
street, asking for alms from the king. Immediately 
Oswald commanded the food to be taken from the 
table and given to the poor, and then that the silver 
dish itself should be broken into pieces and portioned 
out among them. Aidan was so pleased at this char- 
itable action of the king's that he took Oswald's hand 
in his and cried out: "May this blessed hand never 
pass into decay!" And many people believed for cen- 
turies afterward that Oswald's hand remained as 
sound and whole as when he was alive. 

Like so many other kings of the English in these 
early times, Oswald died a violent death, for he was 
killed in battle by a heathen king named Penda. 
Parts of his body were carried away by his friends 
and were buried by Aidan at Lindisfarne. So great 
was the love the English had for Oswald that he 
was reverenced as a saint after his death. A few 
years later Aidan also died, and on the night of his 
death, an English shepherd boy, watching his sheep 
on the hills of Northumberland, saw a vision of 
angels bearing a soul to heaven. Several days later 
he learned that the hour of his vision was just the 
hour at which Aidan died. The name of this shepherd 
boy w^as Cuthbert, and when he was a few years 
older, it was he who took up Aidan's work and car- 
ried it forward. And thus, passing on from one 
man's hand to another's, the work of teaching was 



44 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

cared for without interruption in Northumbria. Mon- 
asteries were built here and there, and in these mon- 
asteries learning and religion and all the arts of peace 
flourished. After a few generations no one would 
have thought of calling the Northumbrians wild and 
barbarous, for the church had taught them not only 
a new religion but a new and a better way of carry- 
ing on the affairs of all their familiar every-day life. 
Thus it was that the English, first in Kent, under 
the teaching of Augustine, and then in Northumbria 
under Paulinus and Aidan, learned to know that there 
are things in this life more worth while than fighting 
merely for the sake of fighting or for the sake of 
conquest. They began to learn the lesson, which the 
world is still learning, that one of the best and high- 
est things for men to do is to live lives of peace and 
good will, and of good works toward each other. 




IV 



THE FIRST POET 



On the northern coast of England, not far from 
the island of Lindisfarne, where Aidan settled when 
he came to Northumbria, there is a little harbor and 
town named Whitby. How long this town has been 
there nobody know^s, for as far back as English 
history runs, the records tell of the existence of a 
town at this place. It is by nature a most con- 
venient place for building a town. The high cliffs 
and headlands, which generally come down to the 
water's edge along this part of the coast of England, 
are here broken by an opening through which a little 
river makes its way down a narrow valley to the sea. 
The early English sailors found it convenient to row 
their boats into the little bay at the mouth of this 
stream, where they could draw them up on the beach, 
out of the way of the surf and the rough water of 
the open ocean. And to this day, if you go to Whitby 
you can see at low tide the great hulls of coasting 
vessels resting on the soft mud o^ the bottom of the 
stream, like stranded whales, waiting for the high tide 
to come and set them afloat again. And if you climb 

45 



46 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

the stony road to the top of the cliff on the southern 
side of the harbor, up past the Httle stone houses all 
with red tile roofs, you will come to the place where 
the first English poet that we know anything about 
lived, and where he wrote his poems. From this cliff 
you can look down upon the town, a busy, bustling 
fishing town to-day as it doubtless was fifteen hun- 
dred years ago ; and you can look out upon the ex- 
panse of the North Sea, whose waves are continually 
breaking at the foot of the cliff, just as they did when 
the first English poet stood there to behold them. 
But if you seek for the home in which this poet dwelt, 
you will find nothing, for nothing now remains there 
to mark the place, except the ruined walls of a mon- 
astery built on the site many years after the poet's 
death. 

This town of Whitby was not always called by 
that name. When the Danes settled in England in 
the time of King Alfred and after, they took posses- 
sion of many English towns, and often gave these 
towns new names. Whitby is a Danish name, and 
means simply White-town. But the first English poet 
lived at Whitby long before the time of the Danes, 
and then the town was known by an English name, 
which, however, does not look very much like English 
as we write it to-day. The first name of Whitby was 
Streones-halh, which means something like River- 
mouth Bay. Since the Danish name is so much easier 
than the English, however, and since the Danish name 
is the one by which the town is known to-day, it seems 
best simply to call the town Whitby, even when we 



THE FIRST POET 47 

are speaking of it at a time before the Danes had 
come to ^^i^-gland. 

The work of building schools and monasteries in 
Northumbria, which Aidan began at Lindisfarne, pro- 
ceeded very rapidly, and just a few years after Aidan's 
death, an important one was established at Whitby. 
It was built by a woman whose name was Hild, and 
who herself became the abbess of the monastery after 
it was finished. In this monastery ruled over by the 
Abbess Hild, there were not only monks and nuns, 
but also a number of servants and helpers who had 
not devoted themselves to the religious life. Among 
these was a poor herdsman whose. name was Cadmon. 
He could neither read nor write, and his work in the 
monastery consisted in taking care of the cows and 
other cattle which were needed to supply the monas- 
tery table with milk and butter. 

Now it was a common custom for Cadmon and his 
other friends to entertain themselves, when the day's 
work was done, by sitting around the fire telling 
stories and singing songs. Among other amusements 
they had one especially which is known as "passing 
the harp." According to this custom, the harp was 
passed along from one person to another, and as it 
came each man's turn, he took the harp and sang a 
song to its accompaniment. Most people in those days 
knew many stories which they could recite in this 
way, but unfortunately for Cadmon, this was an 
accomplishment which he could never learn. Conse- 
quently when he saw the harp approaching him, he 
would get up and leave the circle, ashamed to 



48 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

confess that he could not slug a song as the others 
had done. 

It happened that one night Cadmon left the group 
of his friends in this way, as he had often done be- 
fore, and went into the stable where he was to pass 
the night watching the cattle. After a time he fell 
asleep. As he lay sleeping, he heard a voice calling 
to him, which said: '"'Cadmon, sing for me." Then 
Cadmon answered the voice, saying: 'T cannot sing; 
and it is for that reason that I have left the company 
of my friends and have come hither." ''Nevertheless, 
I say you must sing for me," the voice continued. 
"What shall I sing?" asked Cadmon. "Sing for me," 
the voice answered, "the story of how all things were 
created." And then Cadmon, greatly to his own as- 
tonishment, found that he was able to sing, and he 
began to sing the praises of God the Creator in verses 
which he had never heard before. 

The next morning, when Cadmon awoke from the 
sleep in which he had had this dream or vision, the 
strangest part of it was that he remembered perfectly 
what he had sung in his sleep during the night, and, 
better still, he was able to add other verses to these. 
He told what had happened to him to his master, and 
his master went directly to Abbess Hild and repeated 
the story to her. Hild immediately called Cadmon to 
her, and, sending for several learned monks, she bade 
them recite a passage of Scripture in English to Cad- 
mon, and then she asked Cadmon to turn what he had 
heard into verse. The next morning Cadmon came 
back to Hild and recited to her in perfect and melo- 



THE FIRST POET 



49 



dious verse all that he had been told by the learned 
monks. Then Hild immediately perceived that this 
poor cowherd in her monastery was possessed of a 
very precious gift. She gave orders that he should 
be accepted as a monk into her monastery, and that 
the other monks should teach him all the story of the 
Bible. This was so done, and being unable to read, 
Cadmon learned all the stories of the Bible by hav- 
ing them told to him, and then he turned them into 
poetical form. The monks were glad to write dow^n 
the poems as Cadmon recited them, and thus together 
they put into verse the whole story of the creation 
of the world, of the fall of man, of the children of 
Israel and the Exodus out of Egypt into the Prom- 
ised Land, and many other stories contained in the 
Bible. 

For many years Cadmon continued to live in the 
monastery at Whitby, making noble use of this poet's 
gift that had been granted to him. And it w^as here 
at Whitby that he finally died. He had been unwell 
for several weeks before his death, but it was not sup- 
posed that his sickness was serious. One night, how^- 
ever, the night on which he died, he asked his nurse 
to take him to the infirmary, which was the part of the 
monastery where those brothers who were danger- 
ously sick and on the point of death were usually 
cared for together. The man was surprised that Cad- 
mon should want to be taken to the infirmary, but he 
did as he was asked to do. Cadmon seemed to be 
bright and happy, and talked cheerfully with the 
other sick people in the infirmary. \\'hen it was about 



50 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

midnight, he asked if the Eucharist was there in the 
infirmary. "Why do you ask that?" his friends said. 
"You are not so near to death that you need ask for 
the Eucharist." But Cadmon asked for the Eucharist 
again, and when he had it in his hand he inquired 
whether they were all kindly disposed and at peace 
with him. When they said they were, then Cadmon 
continued : "And I^ too, am at peace with all men." 
Having made his last communion, he asked if the 
time was near when the brothers of the monastery 
should arise and say the prayers known as nocturns. 
"It is almost time," they answered. "Let us then wait 
for it," he said; and blessing himself with the sign of 
the cross, he lay back upon his pillow, and so falling 
asleep, as peacefully and as gently as he had lived, he 
passed to his final rest. 

This is the simple story of the blameless life of the 
first English poet whose name has come down to us. 
Other poets there must have been before Cadmon, 
poets who sang the stories of the bloody combats of 
English heroes before the days of Augustine and 
Aidan. From the very earliest times the English have 
had their bards or minstrels, whose task it was to 
keep alive the fame of the nation's great men. But 
not even the names of any of these earlier heathen 
poets are known to us, and but a few fragments of 
their songs have survived to our day. These songs 
were of the kind which Cadmon could not sing, but 
which his companions, at their feasts and banquets, 
all sang so freely to the accompaniment of the harp. 
This heathen minstrelsv is now all lost and silent, 



THE FIRST POET 51 

. while down through the ages the clear voice of Cad- 
mon is heard, singing the old story of the Creation of 
the World and of the ways of God to man. From 
Cadmon to Milton it is a thousand years, but the poor 
cowherd who became the chief ornament of Hild's 
ancient monastery on the cliff above Whitby sang his 
songs in the same spirit as the author of 'Taradise 
Lost." 




V 



THE VENERABLE BEDE 



The name which his parents gave to this man was 
simply Bede, but so great was the respect which after 
ages had for him that the word venerable was often 
added to his name, and so he came to be called 
The Venerable Bede. There is a legend which started 
a short time after Bede's death telling how he was 
first called venerable. According to this story, when 
Bede was an old man and his eyesight had grown 
dim, a trick was played on him by some thoughtless 
and impertinent young men of his monastery. Bede 
was always very earnest in teaching, and he was care- 
ful never to disappoint people who looked to him for 
counsel and instruction. Now these heedless youths 
came to Bede one day and said to him that the church 
was full of people come there to hear what he had to 
say on a certain subject. Eager as always to teach 
wisdom where it w^as sought for, Bede mounted into 
the pulpit and preached earnestly for a long time. 
His eyes were too dim for him to see that the church 

52 



THE VENERABLE BEDE 53 

was not full of attentive listeners as he had been led 
to suppose, but that, except for the few idle scoffers, 
he was preaching to empty benches. As he finished 
speaking, however, voices were heard from all sides 
in the air, saying, ''Amen, very Venerable Bede." 
And thus we see from this story. that not only did the 
men of his day respect Bede highly, but they thought 
that even the angels listened gladly to his words of 
wisdom. 

The monastery in which Bede lived and labored was 
situated on the northeastern coast of England, be- 
tween Whitby and Lindisfarne. It was therefore 
quite near to these two important places, and it was 
also near to another important place, the town of 
York, where the bishop of the Northumbrians had his 
cathedral church. Bede's monastery was built by a 
man named Benedict, and like Whitby, it was built at 
the mouth of a river. The name of this river being- 
Wear, Benedict's monastery came to be called Wear- 
mouth. After the monastery at Wearmouth was fin- 
ished, Benedict built another about seven miles from 
Wearmouth, and this was called Tarrow. But thoug-h 
they were some distance apart, these two monasteries 
were practically regarded as one. They had one abbot 
to rule over them, and the monks passed back and 
forth from one house to the other. The place is there- 
fore sometimes called a double monastery, and it is 
thus given a double name, the monastery of Wear- 
mouth and Jarrow. 

When Benedict built his monastery at Wearmouth 
it was one of the wonders of the time. Most of the 



54 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

buildings in Benedict's day were still of the rude and 
simple kind that the English had learned to build from 
their half-savage ancestors. When Cadmon was a 
monk at Whitby, he and his fellow-monks lived in old- 
fashioned, wooden and straw-thatched houses, which 
differed very little from those in which an atheling and 
his companions lived. But Benedict was a man who 
had traveled and seen something of the world. He 
was not satisfied, therefore, with such simple sur- 
roundings as the founders of the earlier monasteries 
had contented themselves with. He had been in 
Rome, and now, when he came to build his monastery, 
he used stone instead of wood for the structure. He 
even had windows with glass in them, a thing almost 
unheard of in England at that time. Moreover he 
brought over pictures from the Continent to adorn 
his church, and rich garments for the priests to wear 
while they were performing the services, and costly 
and beautiful vessels, crosses and other furnishings 
for the altar. All this was very different from what 
the Northumbrians had been used to in earlier days. 
Aidan's churches were all simple and rough, but now 
Benedict strove to show that the new teaching could 
be made beautiful as well as useful and true. Best of 
all, Benedict was greatly interested in books, and 
wherever he went in his travels, he industriously 
gathered together as many books as he could find and 
brought them back to his monastery. Thus in the 
course of time there was collected at Wearmouth a 
library of perhaps several hundred volumes, which in 
those times was a library of considerable size. And 



THE VENERABLE BEDE 55 

it was the presence of this Hbrary at VVearmouth 
which enabled Bede to become, as he did when he 
grew up, one of the greatest scholars and the best 
writers in all Europe in his day. 

After it was founded, Benedict's monastery con- 
tinued to flourish for some years, until at length a ter- 
rible pestilence began to rage in the land. The monks 
died off one after the other, and it seemed as though 
nothing could stop the ravages of this plague. At last 
all the monks at Wearmouth had died except one, and 
in the whole monastery there was besides this monk 
only one little boy to help in the performance of the 
divine service. Faithful to his duty to the end, this 
monk regularly went through the appointed services 
of the church, though no one was there to listen or to 
sing the responses except this one little boy, who 
bravely held up his part of the services. Now, this 
little boy was Bede. He had entered the monastery 
when he was only seven years old as a student and 
choirboy, and in this monastery he remained to the 
very end of his life. When he was nineteen years old 
he was made a deacon, and when he was thirty years 
old he was made a priest. These were the only impor- 
tant events of his life, and as you see, they were not 
very exciting. Bede's whole existence was spent in 
the peace and quiet of Benedict's monastery, and his 
days were passed in calm study, in writing, in teach- 
ing and in meditation. The confusion of warfare, the 
struggle for high places of wealth and power by the 
ambitious, all the hates and fears, the pushings and 
strivings of life in the world, were unknown to Bede. 



56 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

His mind was always placid and serene, and his life 
was always that of the gentle scholar who seeks only 
to know^ the truth for himself and to teach other 
people to know^ it. 

Though all of Bede's life was spent in the quiet and 
seclusion of the monastery at Wearmouth, it must not 
be supposed that his was an idle life. On the con- 
trary it was a very busy one, as were the lives of the 
other monks in the monastery. After the plague 
which carried off so many of the brothers at Wear- 
mouth had passed away, gradually the places of the 
old monks were taken by new ones until the monas- 
tery was again full. In the two houses of Wear- 
mouth and Jarre w there were altogether six hundred 
members. And all these monks were constantly busy 
doing something. Their monastery was a perfect hive 
of bees, every one industriously adding his own little 
part to the general store. Or perhaps it would be 
better to call it a great college, for the monasteries in 
oldest England filled the place which colleges and 
other schools occupy now^adays. But the ancient 
monasteries differed from the modern college in this 
respect, that the members of the monasteries did a 
much greater variet}^ of things than the members of 
a modern college do. Since the monastery had to pro- 
vide its own food, shelter and clothing, some of the 
monks must plow the fields and sow and reap the 
grain. Others took care of the cattle and the sheep, 
while still others turned the milk and cream which the 
cows produced into cheese and butter, and the wool 
that was shorn from the backs of the sheep into yarn 



THE VENERABLE BEDE 57 

for weaving. All the building of the monastery was 
done by the brothers themselves, and so there was 
need for masons and carpenters and all kinds of work- 
men. If any tools or utensils were needed, cups or 
plates or pans, they had to be made in the monastery, 
and workmen were therefore . trained for the me- 
chanic's trade. In the house itself there were cookine 
and cleaning and baking to be done, in fact, all the 
thousand and one cares of a household to be attended 
to. Indeed, the monks in these early monasteries 
called themselves a family, although the family was 
usually a rather large one and the members of it were 
occupied in so many different ways that it seemed more 
like a little world than a family. With all these spe- 
cial tasks of the various members of the monastery, 
there were certain duties which all the brothers per- 
formed alike, from youngest to oldest, from lowest to 
highest, and these were the duties of attending and 
taking part in the religious services of the monastery. 
These services consisted not merely of a few minutes 
for prayers every morning, but throughout the day 
and night, at certain hours there were appointed serv- 
ices which the brothers were pledged to observe. 
These services took up a good deal of their time, but 
no matter how busy they were, the services were not 
neglected; for the monks were of the opinion that a 
man should never become so occupied with his own 
affairs that he neglected the affairs of God. Bede 
was a very busy and industrious man, but he would 
never excuse himself on this account from the regu- 
lar services of the monastery. However important 



58 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

he coiirsidered his other work, he thought that there 
was nothing more important than the daily and 
hourly services of the church. ''I know," he said, 
"that angels come to the meetings of the brethren. 
But what if they did not find me among them when 
they came? Would they not say, 'Where is Bede? 
Why does he not come with the brethren to the ap- 
pointed prayers ?' " 

Now, Bede also had his special work in this busy 
monastery at Wearmouth, but he neither worked in 
the fields, nor made pots and pans, nor was he a 
weaver or a carpenter or a mason. His occupation 
was one which at first sight may seem much less val- 
uable than these useful and practical trades. His 
work was that of a student and writer of books. "I 
have always," he said, ''found my pleasure in learn- 
ing, teaching and writing." And to-day, though we 
know practically nothing about the buildings of the 
carpenter and the mason who labored at Wearmouth, 
since they have long ago crumbled away, the name of 
Bede and the books which he wrote are still as fresh 
and important as they ever were. The carpenter and 
the mason were undoubtedly necessary before there 
could be a place for the scholar, but the monks of 
Bede's day were wise enough to see that mere build- 
ings of brick and stones were not the only things to 
be sought for, and that there must be a place also for 
the scholar, who works not with his hands but with 
his mind, in their little world. Indeed, if it were not 
for Bede we should know practically nothing about 
Wearmouth or about England in the period in which 



THE VENERABLE BEDE 59 

he lived, for it is mainly from his writings that we 
learn about the events of his day. 

Bede studied and taught and wrote about a great 
many different things. His most interesting, and, to 
us to-day, his most important book is his HISTORY 
OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. This book tells the 
whole story of the coming of the English to England 
under Hengest and Horsa, of the work of Augustine, 
of Paulinus and of Aidan, and of all the other im- 
portant happenings in England down to the year 731. 
It was finished in that year, which was just four years 
before Bede's death. He also wrote another book, 
telling the lives of all the abbots of Wearmouth and 
Jarrow from the time of Benedict down to his own 
day. Besides being a learned historian, Bede was 
likewise skilled in arithmetic, and he wrote some 
mathematical works which were known and used all 
over Europe. He wrote other books for his pupils 
to aid them in learning grammar, rhetoric and the 
writing of Latin verses. Finally he wrote many ser- 
mons and commentaries on the Scriptures. All of 
these works were written in Latin, for Latin was the 
language which scholars always used in Bede's day 
for their more serious writings. Bede was an Eng- 
lishman, and he did write some things in English, 
but Latin was a language which every educated man 
knew, whether he was Italian, German, French or 
English, and therefore it was much more sensible to 
write in Latin than in English, which practically no 
one outside of England could understand in those 
days. Bede's writings were known and circulated, 



6o IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

therefore, not only in England, but everywhere on the 
Continent as Avell. His writings were copied and re- 
copied, and to this day manuscripts of his w^orks are 
more frequently found in the old libraries of Europe 
than of any other author of his time. But besides all 
the work of collecting the facts that he wished 'to 
write about and then of putting them together into 
books of his own, Bede had another occupation that 
occupied a great deal of his time. He was a teacher, 
and many students came to Wearmouth from all 
parts of England to be trained under his direction. 
Bede not only loved to learn things for himself, but 
also to help others to learn. Where the teacher is 
willing and the students are eager, the work is sure 
to be well and pleasantly done, and Bede's students al- 
ways spoke of him as their ''beloved master," and he 
called them his ''dearest sons." 

One of the monks in the monastery at Wearmouth 
was named Cuthbert, and he wrote a letter in which 
he told the story of Bede's last sickness and death. 
In the spring of the year 735, when Bede w^as sixty- 
two years old, his strength began to fail. In spite of 
his growing weakness, however, he w^ould not give up 
any of his usual daily tasks. He still taught his 
pupils and attended to all the duties of the monastic 
life. Bede knew many English poems, probably those 
of Cadmon among others, and often he would encour- 
age his friends by singing some of these verses. The 
work which he was engaged in writing at the time of 
his last sickness was a translation of the Gospel of 
St. John from Latin into English. In Bede's day 



THE VENERABLE BEDE 6i 

there were no English translations of the Bible, and 
Bede was the first Englishman who undertook to put 
the Bible into the language which all Englishmen can 
read. He was very anxious to complete this transla- 
tion, and as he lay on his sick bed, he had the brothers 
write down the words at his dictation. Early on the 
morning of the day of his death, they began to write 
as Bede directed them, and they wrote steadily until 
nine o'clock, when they were called away to attend 
services in the chapel. Bede was then left alone with 
only a little boy, named Wilbert, to act as his scribe. 
'There is only one chapter left," said Wilbert, ''but 
you suffer too much to go on and finish it now." 
"No," answered Bede ; "T do not sufifer. Take your 
pen and mend it, and write quickly." So the hours 
passed quietly by, with the boy Wilbert writing by his 
side, and Bede as cheerful as ever and as happy in his 
work. As the writing continued Wilbert said at last, 
"Dear master, now there is only one sentence not yet 
written down." "Very well," answered Bede, "now 
write it." After a moment Wilbert said, "Now it is 
finished," and Bede replied, "You have spoken truly; 
it is finished." And then, chanting a prayer to himself, 
Bede lay back on his couch and quietly breathed his 
last. He had lived the happiest life that any man can 
live, a life of peace and gentleness, every day filled 
with pleasant and useful occupation to the very last 
moment of his serene and saintly old age. 

Such was the life and such were the works of one 
of the earliest of Englishmen to follow the calling of 
student and scholar. Since Bede's day there have been 



62 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

many Englisliiiien who have found their pleasure in 
learning and teaching and writing, and many who 
have accomplished great good by their writing. In 
all the long list, however, there is none Avho has lived 
a more unselfish or blameless life than Bede lived. 
He lived not for himself, but for others, and when we 
recall that the year of Bede's death was just one hun- 
dred years after the year of Aidan's arrival among 
the rough and quarrelsome Northumbrians, we can 
see that a great change had been wTought in the Eng- 
lish in this comparatively short time. We do not 
know who Bede's grandfather was, but we can be 
pretty sure that he was a heathen, that he never had 
a pen in his hand, and that he would have found it 
hard to understand what charity and love for his fel- 
low men meant, if any one had tried to explain these 
ideas to him. But in Bede's day the Northumbrians 
were no longer interested merely in bloodshed and 
warfare. They had learned many new things, not 
only how to make their surroundings more pleasant 
and comfortable, but also how to make their minds 
richer and their hearts gentler and more kindly. They 
had passed out of barbarism into civilization. 




VI 



THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND 

In Jutland and on the island of Zealand and the 
many other islands belonging to the kingdom of Den- 
mark, and then across the narrow straits and the Bal- 
tic Sea in Norway and in Sweden, there dwelt in the 
eighth century a race of bold and adventurous sea- 
men. Though they belonged to several different king- 
doms, they were all closely related in blood. They 
were, in fact, near akin to the tribes of Angles and 
Jutes and Saxons who had left the Continent several 
centuries before to found a new nation in Britain. 
But while the English in England were gradually be- 
coming Christianized and civilized, their Teutonic 
cousins in Denmark and Norway remained as wild 
and as barbarous heathens as ever. They had their 
halls and their towns, just like those of the English, 
but no teachers had ever come to them to lead them to 
a different life from that which they had always 
known. They knew nothing about Rome and the 
Roman church, and they knew nothing about England, 
for after the English left their old homes, they soon 
gave up all communication with the kinsmen whom 

63 



64 



IN OLDEST ENGLAND 



they left behind. And after the coming of Augustine 
to England, the minds of the English were turned to 
the south, toward France and Rome, rather than to the 
north, toward Denmark and Norway. 

These vikings of Denmark and Norway, however, 
were soon to have their day. For some reason or 
other the fever of adventure got into their blood, and 
they grew dissatisfied with the life they had been liv- 




The Old Homes of the Northmen 
ing along the creeks and bays of the North Sea and 
the Baltic. They had always been used to the water, 
and nothing was easier for them to do than to build 
ships and sail away to any country they wanted to 
reach. Now the nearest country and the one which 
promised the richest plunder was England, and to 
England the piratical vikings first turned their atten- 
tion. 

In the meantime, England was all unconscious of 
the trouble that was brewing. The English had lived 



THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND 65 

so long in peace that they had forgotten the possibiHty 
of any danger from abroad. But they were soon to 
have a rude awakening. One day in the year 793, 
ships full of armed men appeared off the northeastern 
coast of England. Knowing perfectly well where the 
richest treasure was to be found, the captains of these 
ships steered their course to Lindisfarne Island, where 
Aidan had built his monastery. There they landed 
their troops and the work of destruction and pillage 
began. They burned the buildings and killed or car- 
ried off the monks into slavery. All the contents of 
the monastery that were valuable or that struck them 
as useful they bore away to their ships. When they 
sailed away with their booty, they left behind them 
nothing but a heap of smoking ruins to mark the place 
where once a busy throng of monks had labored and 
led their lives in peace and innocence. The next year 
another band of vikings attacked Bede's old monas- 
tery at Jarrow, and they plundered it as Lindisfarne 
had been plundered just a year before. This time, 
however, they did not escape so easily, for some Eng- 
lish warriors managed to capture their leader and to 
slay him, and the ships in which the vikings had come 
being soon afterward wrecked, the English put to 
death all the pirates they could lay their hands on. 

This was the beginning of the great struggle be- 
tween the English and the vikings, which was to last 
for two hundred years, and which was to end only 
with the seating of a Danish king on the English 
throne. This Danish conquest of England, however, 
was to take place slowly, and the Danes themselves 



66 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

were to change greatly in the course of it. In these 
first years of their attacks upon England they worked 
in a very haphazard way. They had no settled plan 
or no single leader; but whenever a Danish earl de- 
cided that he wanted to go adventuring, he got his 
carpenters together and he built himself a long ship. 
Then he summoned his thanes, as many as he wanted 
to take with him, and they were ready to face the 
world. It was customary to give the title of king to 
an earl in command of a fleet, even though he had no 
land, for it was supposed that when he got tired of 
voyaging about in search of plunder and wanted to 
settle down in his kingdom, the commander of sudi 
a fleet would know how to help himself to all the lands 
he needed. The largest ships were called dragons, be- 
cause they were ornamented at the prow with the 
carved head of a dragon and at the stern with a drag- 
on's tail, so that the whole ship was supposed to be a 
floating dragon. As the vikings became rich from 
their plunder, they spent a great deal of care and 
money on the ornamentation of their ships. The 
dragon's head was often plated with gold and the ship 
itself was painted with bright colors. The warriors 
were all well armed, and with the prospect of plunder 
always before them and no qualms of conscience to 
disturb their peace of mind, they fought boldly and 
merrily wherever they saw anything to be gained. But 
they were too worldly-wise to fight merely for glory. 
Ever ready to risk their lives and to follow their earl 
wherever he led them, they never lost sight of the 
fact that to have ships and swords and shields and 



THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND 67 

spears, and gold rings to wear on their arms and gold 
buckles and pins and chains to adorn themselves with, 
they must first provide their earl with the means for 
giving such gifts. They were sea rovers and gentle- 
man adventurers, and the profit of one was the profit 
of the other, and their profit together was always the 
loss of the enemy. 

Many of the old sagas of the vikings tell how they 
prepared their ships and set out in search of adven- 
ture. One time King Ragnar, says his saga, was sit- 
ting at home thinking about his sons, who had be- 
come famous warriors; and, since he was unwilling 
that the sons should surpass the father, he pondered 
what he could do to equal their great deeds. At length 
he called together his workmen and had trees felled 
in the forest and set the carpenters to work to build 
two ships larger than had ever before been built in 
that land. Then he made preparations of all kinds, 
and people soon saw that Ragnar intended to go on 
an expedition. But nobody knew where he was go- 
ing, and all the neighboring kings began to strengthen 
their defenses for fear he intended to attack them. 
When his preparations were all made, Randalin, Rag- 
nar's wife, asked him where he was going; and Rag- 
nar said he was going to England with only these two 
ships and as many men as he could get into them. 
"This plan," said Randalin, "seems to me very rash. 
It would be much better for you to have more ships 
and smaller ones than to go only with your two great 
ships." "I should deserve little credit," answered 
Ragnar, "if I won lands with many ships. But there 



68 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

is no record of any one who has won such a land as 
England with only two ships, and two ships only will 
I take with me." In spite of all that Randalin could 
say, Ragnar would have his way, and he set out for 
England with only two ships. It would have been 
better for him if he had listened to his wife's advice, 
for on his voyage to England he met with stormy 
weather, and both his ships were wrecked on the 
coast of England. Ragnar and all his men reached 
the shore alive, with all their armor, but they were at- 
tacked by the English and every one of them was 
slain. Ragnar himself was taken alive, and, accord- 
ing to the saga, was put into a snake-pit, where he was 
stung to death by the snakes in the pit. When the 
news of Ragnar's death was brought back to his sons, 
they all vowed vengeance on the English, and in the 
end they made the English pay dearly for the death of 
their father. 

At another time another famous viking, named 
Olaf, was out on a raid, and being in need of food, he 
w^ent ashore on the coast of Ireland with his men and 
drove down a number of cattle to the beach. A farmer 
came to Olaf and begged him to give back his cows. 
Olaf told the farmer that they were in a hurry, but 
that he might have his cows if he could recognize 
them and get them out of the herd without delaying 
their departure. Now Olaf supposed this would be 
impossible, for the herd was a very large one. But 
the farmer had with him a fine sheep-dog, and when 
he had spoken to the dog and pointed out the herd to 
him, the dog went into the herd, and picking out one 



THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND 69 

cow here and another there, he soon had as many 
separated from the rest of the herd as the farmer had 
said he owned. When they saw that all of these cows 
were marked with the same mark, then Olaf and his 
men acknowledged that the dog had picked out the 
right cattle, and they all thought he was a remarkably 
knowing dog. Olaf asked the farmer if he would 
give him the dog, and the farmer gladly did so. In 
return Olaf gave the farmer a gold ring, and prom- 
ised always to be his friend. This dog's name was 
Vigi, and the saga says that he was the best of all 
dogs and that Olaf owned him for a long time after- 
ward. 

The vikings were very proud of their ships and 
King Olaf owned a dragon that was famous in its day 
and for many years after. He called it the Long 
Serpent, and he had another smaller ship which he 
called the Short Serpent. The Long Serpent was 
nearly one hundred and fifty feet long, and the drag- 
on's head at the prow and the tail at the stern were 
ornamented with gold. Olaf was very careful in the 
building of this ship, and only the best materials were 
used. Thorberg was the name of the shipbuilder who 
laid the keel and made the stem and stern. While 
the bulwarks were being put on, Thorberg had to go 
home for some time to his farm, and when he got back 
the bulwarks were all on. That same evening King 
Olaf and Thorberg went to look at the ship, and every- 
body said they had never seen a larger or a finer long- 
ship than this was. The next morning early Olaf and 
Thorberg again went down to look at the ship, but 



70 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

when they got there they found the workmen all stand- 
ing about and doing nothing. The king asked the 
reason, and they said that the ship was spoiled, that 
some one had gone along one side from stem to stern 
and had made deep cuts in the gunwale. When the 
king saw this he was very angry, and he swore that 
the man who had done this should be put to death, 
and the one who could find out who had done it should 
receive a large reward. *T can tell you, king," said 
Thorberg, ''who did this." ''You are the most likely 
man to know," answered the king; "who did it?" "I 
can tell you who did it," said Thorberg ; "I did it my- 
self." "Then you shall make it as good as it was 
before, or you shall lose your life," replied the king to 
this. Then Thorberg set to work and shaped the 
gunwale down as far as the cuts reached, and when 
he had finished, everybody said that the ship was 
shaped much better on that side than it had been be- 
fore. The king then asked Thorberg to shape the gun- 
wale on the other side in the same way, and Olaf was 
so well pleased with Thorberg's work that after that 
he made Thorberg the master for the building of the 
whole ship until it was finished. 

It was thus as pirates and sea-rovers that the vikings 
for some years continued to make their visits to Eng- 
land. Although they might cause great loss and suf- 
fering wherever they happened to strike, yet so long 
as they came merely as pirates and made their attacks 
here and there scatteringly, at some rich monastery or 
other place promising plunder, the country as a whole 
did not suffer greatly from their invasions. But after 



THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND 71 

a time the vikings were not satisfied with making 
piratical raids. Just as the first Enghshmen had done 
when they came over at the invitation of Vortigern, 
the vikings soon made up their minds that they wanted 
to settle down in England. Wherever an earl found 
a place that suited him, he straightway drove away or 
killed the English inhabitants, and then himself took 
possession. Gradually in this way the greater part 
of Northumberland, the land in which Paulinus and 
Aidan, Cadmon and Bede, had lived, was occupied 
by these pirates turned Immigrant, and then, the Eng- 
lish having be^n practically driven out of Northum- 
berland, the invaders directed their attention to other 
parts of the country. 

In the south of England, however, the vikings did 
not find such an easy conquest as they had found in 
the north. They made raids here and there, but when 
it came to the question of settling down and actually 
owning the land as some of their comrades had done 
in the north, the southern vikings met with a check. 
For now a little kingdom in the southern and western 
part of England gathered itself together and showed 
that all bravery and ability had not died out in Eng- 
lishmen. This was the little kingdom of the West 
Saxons, and it was the glory of Wessex to bring forth 
a line of kings who were to save England from be- 
ing completely overwhelmed by the Danes. The first 
great king of Wessex was named Egbert. It was Eg- 
bert's chief aim to unite as many of the smaller Eng- 
lish kingdoms as possible, for he knew that the only 
hope of the English lay in such a union. He was so 



y2 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

successful in this that before his death he was ac- 
knowledged as the head of all the different kingdoms 
in England. At his death Egbert was succeeded by 
his son Athelwulf, who carried on the work his father 
had begun as best he could. But the vikings were 
coming in greater and greater bands, and London and 
Canterbury and many other places in the south were 
attacked and plundered. Athelwulf was not a very 
successful king-, and the task which he left to his sons 
at his death was a difficult one. There were four of 
these sons. The eldest was named Athelbald, the next 
was Athelbert, and the third was Athelred. These 
three brothers became king one after the other, but 
each died after he had reigned only a few years. The 
fourth and youngest son of Athelwulf was Alfred, the 
strongest king the West Saxons had ever had to that 
time, and one of the greatest kings who has ever ruled 
over the English. He is, indeed, the only king of the 
English who has been called The Great, and Alfred 
the Great won his chief glory in saving England from 
the hands of the Danes. 




VII 



ALFRED THE GREAT 

King Alfred was the youngest of four brothers. 
At the death of Athelwulf, the father of the four, the 
oldest son became king of the West Saxons. He 
lived only two years, and then the second son be- 
came king. Six years was the length of this son's 
reign, and five years the length of the reign of the 
brother who succeeded him. On the death of the last 
of his brothers in 871, Alfred, the youngest, became 
king of the West Saxons, and thus at the age of 
twenty-two he began his long and hard reign of 
thirty years, which was to mean so much, not merely 
for the West Saxons, but for all the English in Eng- 
land. 

Alfred's father, Athelwulf, was a good and pious 
man, but not well fitted to rule a kingdom in such 
troublous times as these were in England. It was in 
Athelwulf's reign that the Danes first became a seri- 
ous menace in the south of England; but Athelwulf 
seems to have done very little in preparation for de- 
fense against them. The Danes, however, were so un- 
expected in these first attacks, landing their troops 

73 



74 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

along the coast wherever it was undefended, and then, 
after they had taken all the plunder they could, sail- 
ing away again, that perhaps little could be done by 
the English in the way of preparation. It was only 
after the Danes had begun to come to southern Eng- 
land with armies of occupation that the English could 
do anything against them. You might suppose that 
the English would have been able to defend their 
coasts with their own fleets against the ships of the 
Danes. As a matter of fact, however, the English in 
Athelwulf's day had no ships. They had been living 
peaceful, quiet lives for the preceding two hundred 
years in England, the lives of farmers and herders of 
flocks, and in the course of this time they had lost all 
the sea- faring skill of their ancestors. They had long 
since given up making piratical expeditions to other 
lands, and thus had forgotten how to sail ships or 
how to build them. And it was Alfred himself who 
first began to build a fleet of ships to protect the Eng- 
lish coasts. 

While he was still a boy, Alfred made two long 
journeys. When he was four years old his father sent 
him on a visit to Rome. Alfred's father did not sup- 
pose that Alfred w^ould understand much that he 
heard or saw on this journey, but being a very pious 
man, Athelwulf was anxious that his son should have 
the benefit of a blessing from the Pope's own hands. 
When the boy Alfred reached Rome, he was honor- 
ably entertained by the Pope, who received him as his 
god-child and also hallowed him as king. This hal- 
lowhig of Alfred as king seems like taking time a 



ALFRED THE GREAT 75 

good deal by the forelock, since at that time not only 
his father but his three older brothers were still liv- 
ing, and there seemed little chance that Alfred would 
ever become king. But probably the Pope's hallowing 
was meant to be merely provisional, in case the unex- 
pected should happen. 

Alfred's second long journey was another visit 
which he made to Rome several years after the first, 
when he was eight years old. This time he went in 
company with his father, who, having given a tenth 
of all his private lands to the church, was now continu- 
ing his work of piety by going on a pilgrimage to the 
Holy City itself. This journey took over a year, and 
as Athelwulf and his court stopped at many interest- 
ing places, the time must have seemed short enough 
to the young Alfred. One of the places where Athel- 
wulf stopped was at the court of Charles the Bald, 
who was the grandson of the Emperor Charlemagne ; 
and while he was at the court of Charles, Athelwulf, 
whose wife, the mother of Alfred, had been dead for 
some time, was married to a daughter of the Emperor 
Charles. Her name was Judith, and she traveled back 
to England with her husband Athelwulf and her step- 
son Alfred. 

As Alfred grew up he began to take part in the 
warfare with the Danes which went on continuously 
through the three short reigns of his older brothers. 
And when he himself became king in 871, being then 
only twenty-two years old, the Danes were still the 
most serious difficulty he had to face. Very little is 
known about Alfred's life and education before he 



y6 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

became king, but probably he had few opportunities 
for learning and studying. He says himself, in one 
of his own writings later, that when he became king 
he did not know of a single man south of the river 
Thames who could read or write Latin. Alfred did 
not learn Latin until he was a grown man, and then 
he had to import teachers from outside England to 
teach him. This strange condition of affairs was the 
result of the continual state of war which was caused 
by the attacks of the Danes, and the years of Alfred's 
youth, which should have been spent in quiet study, 
w^ere actually passed in the turmoil and bustle of the 
camp. 

Slowly but apparently inevitably Alfred saw the 
Danes closing in upon him. By the time_ he became 
king they had occupied practically the whole of the 
country north of the Thames, and soon they began to 
cross over the Thames into Alfred's own kingdom of 
the West Saxons with the intention of settling there. 
The first invaders of Wessex were more or less suc- 
cessfully driven back, and in the year in which Alfred 
became king, the English won a victory over the 
Danes as a result of which a treaty of peace was made 
between the tw^o sides. A few years later, however, 
the Danes, caring little for the promises they had 
given and having gathered together a great army un- 
der the command of a Dane named Guthrum, again 
set about the conquest of Wessex, the last stronghold 
of the English in England. 

This time the Danes adopted tactics which they 
seem never to have used before, and consequently 



ALFRED THE GREAT 77 

they took the English entirely by surprise. Both 
Danes and English were accustomed to carry on their 
campaigns only in the summer, the Danes spending 
the cold months in their winter quarters and the Eng- 
lish at their homes. But on this occasion, the Danes 
suddenly appeared in Wessex in the midst of winter, a 
week or so after Christmas. Alfred had no army 
ready to meet them, for his men were scattered all 
over the land at their various homes, and conse- 
quently the Danes ravaged and plundered at their own 
sweet wills. Alfred himself was hard pressed, but he 
managed to escape with a small band of faithful fol- 
lowers. He hid himself away at a place called Athel- 
ney. This was a little island of solid ground in the 
midst of a region of impassable swamps and marshes 
in Somersetshire. Here the Danes could not find Al- 
fred, and from this retreat he began to plan for the 
recovery of his kingdom. It was a heavy task that lay 
before him, for the only spot of ground in all Eng- 
land at this time in the possession of an English king 
was this little island of Athelney. 

But Alfred was not one to give in easily. He sent 
out word to the English wherever he could reach 
them, and soon he found an army beginning to gather 
together about him. By a few weeks after Easter he 
felt strong enough to come out from his hiding place, 
and then his army grew rapidly, for everybody was 
glad to see him again. Alfred was now ready to face 
his enemy, and he straightway sought him out at a 
place called Ethandun. A great battle was fought be- 
tween the Danes and English, and the English put the 



78 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Danes to flight. The Danes managed, however, to 
intrench themselves within their fortifications, and the 
Enghsh therefore rode after them and besieged them 
for a fortnight. At the end of that time the Danes 
were compelled to surrender. They gave hostages to 
Alfred and took oaths of peace, and their king, Guth- 
rum, agreed also to receive baptism. A few weeks 




An Old Northern Ship of War 

later Guthrum and thirty of the most distinguished of 
the Danes came to Alfred at Aller near Athelney, and 
after that they went to one of Alfred's houses and 
were baptized, at a place called Wedmore. Alfred on 
his side treated Guthrum with great honor and gave 
to him many rich presents. And since this treaty be- 
tween Alfred and Guthrum was completed at Wed- 
more, it is usually called the Peace of Wedmore. By 
the terms of the treaty, the Danes were to withdraw 



ALFRED THE GREAT 79 

from Wessex and leave Alfred and his people in peace. 
There was to be a Danish part of England, known as 
the Danelaw, north of the river Thames, and an Eng- 
lish England, south of the Thames. Thus Alfred 
agreed, for the time being, to a division of the country 
of the English, realizing that only by strengthening 
themselves in one place, in Wessex, could the English 
ever hope to win back the northern regions from the 
Danes. 

For some years after the treaty of Wedmore, Al- 
fred lived in peace. These years of peace were not 
years of idleness on the part of Alfred. In the first 
place it was during this time that Alfred carried out 
some of the many plans for the general welfare of his 
people in which he was interested; and in the second 
place, realizing that the struggle with the Danes might 
begin again at any moment, he gave much attention 
to the organizing and strengthening of his army. 
When war actually began again in 893 the English 
showed the good effects of their training-. In this 
year the Danes of the Danelaw, disregarding the 
promises given at Wedmore, joined forces with a 
great army of Danes, or Northmen, who had been rav- 
aging in France, but who, having been driven out of 
that country, had now come over to England to try 
to get a footing in Alfred's kingdom of Wessex. It 
was an unlucky venture, however, on the part of the 
Danes. They fought numerous battles with the Eng- 
lish, but always on the losing side. The Danes were 
finally so hard pressed that they left their wives and 
children and property behind them in a camp in East 



8o IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Anglia, although it was their usual custom to carry 
everything with them, and fled, panic-stricken, travel- 
ing night and day, until they came to the old Roman 
town of Chester, near the western coast of England. 
This town had now been deserted for hundreds of 
years, but the Roman walls were so well built that they 
were still standing, as they are to this day, and be- 
hind these walls the Danes hoped to defend them- 
selves. The English pursued them up to the very walls 
of Chester, cutting off as many of the Danes as they 
could before they got within the walls. But not being 
prepared to carry on a siege, the English then de- 
stroyed all the pasturage and provisions in the neigh- 
borhood of Chester and left the Danes in their strong- 
hold. But the Danes also were without food for them- 
selves or their horses, and consequently after the Eng- 
lish had departed, they got back to East Anglia as 
best they could, and those who had no money with 
which to buy land from their kinsmen in the Danish 
parts of England seized ships along the coast and 
sailed away again, with little glory or booty to their 
credit as result of this expedition. 

It was about this time that Alfred began to build 
ships of his own. His ships were much larger than 
the Danish ships, being twice as long. Some of them 
had sixty oars, some more, and since there were 
usually two men to each oar, besides the other war- 
riors who did not row, these ships carried several hun- 
dred men each. The boats were made neither after 
the fashion of Danish or of Frisian ships, but accord- 
ing to Alfred's own designs. They stood higher in 



ALFRED THE GREAT 8i 

the water, and were likewise swifter and steadier than 
the boats hitherto in use. Alfred had a number of 
Frisians in his service, and these Frisians, whose 
home was the region now known as Holland, were 
useful to the English in teaching them the almost for- 
gotten art of sailing. 

Learning at one time that six Danish ships had ap- 
peared along the southern coast, doing great damage 
everywhere, Alfred sent nine of his new ships in pur- 
suit. The English contrived to pen the Danish ships 
within the narrow channel which runs between the 




An English Ship 

Isle of Wight and the coast of Hampshire. Leaving 
three ships to guard the mouth of the channel, the 
English took six of their boats up into the channel. 
They found the Danish ships at the head of the chan- 
nel, and after a fight they captured three of them. In 
the meantime the other three ships of the Danes had 
grounded, and the Danes had left their ships and gone 
up on land. The tide continuing to ebb, it was not 
long before the English ships were also grounded, 
very unluckily, however, three on one shore of the 
channel and three on the other. Then the English 
in the three ships that were grounded on the same side 
of the channel that the Danes were on also left their 



82 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

ships and attacked the Danes on foot. The English 
were getting the better of the fight, but the flood tide 
coming in floated the Danish ships first and they got 
aboard and rowed away, with the EngHsh standing on 
shore and waiting for the tide to float their boats. 
But the men in the Danish boats were so weak from 
wounds and so worn out from fighting that they could 
not manage their boats, and when they got out of the 
quiet water of the channel, the sea cast the boats up 
on the shore. The men in the boats were taken pris- 
oners and were carried off to Winchester, Alfred's 
capital, where they were hanged. Many times Alfred 
showed mercy to his prisoners, but here simple justice 
to his own people demanded that these pirates and de- 
stroyers should not be allowed to carry on their work 
without fear of punishment. 

For the last four years of Alfred's life, the Danes 
left him and his country in peace. In their campaigns 
with the English, they had learned to have a whole- 
some Irespect for them, and though Alfred never 
fought merely for the sake of fighting, he had learned 
that one way of avoiding war was to show his ene- 
mies that he Avas strong enough to win. 

In spite of the fact that a good part of Alfred's 
time was spent in battles and camps, by natural incli- 
nation he was much more a ruler and a scholar than a 
soldier. His duty to his country demanded a sol- 
dier's service of him, and this part of his duty he 
never shirked. But whenever there was peace, Al- 
fred always turned gladly to other things. He was 
greatly interested in reforming the laws of the Eng- 



ALFRED THE GREAT 83 

lish, and he himself made a set of laws known as Al- 
fred's Code. In many other ways he tried to get the 
English to take a proper pride and interest in their 
own affairs. Under his direction a history of Eng- 
land was prepared, beginning with early Roman times 
and coming down to Alfred's Qwn day. It was con- 
tinued after Alfred's death with a record of the events 
of each year, and this Chronicle, as it is called, was 
kept up in this way until after the coming of William 
the Conqueror to England. It is, therefore, a kind 
of diary of old English history, arranged by years in- 
stead of days, from the beginning down to the end at 
the arrival of the Normans. It is written in English, 
and it is, of course, one of the chief means by which 
we are able to know anything at all about England in 
these early times. Another historical work that Al- 
fred was greatly interested in was Bede's HISTORY, 
and this work he had translated from the Latin of 
Bede into English. This also is an important book, 
but it ends at the death of Bede, which took place a 
hundred years before Alfred was born. 

Alfred had many other plans for the improvement 
of his people. He wanted them to know all the best 
that had been thought and written in past ages, and 
accordingly he himself went to work, and he set 
others to work, translating some of the most impor- 
tant books of history, philosophy, geography and other 
subjects. These books were mostly written in Latin, 
and Alfred's translations were in English. But Al- 
fred was well aware that comparatively few people in 
his day knew how to read and write even English, and 



84 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

this state of affairs he was very eager to reform. He 
passed a decree that every EngHsh boy whose father 
had sufficient means should be sent to school until 
he could read and write English. This must have 
seemed a strange demand to a good many English- 
men of the time, for reading and writing were not 
usually supposed to be very important accomplish- 
ments, except for the clergy. But in this, as in many 
other ways, Alfred was ahead of his times. He 
thought that every English boy should first learn to 
read and write English, and that after that he might 
study Latin, if he wanted to prepare himself for one 
of the more learned callings. Just when it was that 
Alfred himself learned to read and write English it 
is hard to say. Probably, however, he had very little 
chance to learn English or anything else in his youth, 
except how to fight and to lead others in the fight. 
And we know that Alfred had reached the years of 
manhood before he was able to begin the study of 
Latin. Perhaps it was his own lack of opportunity 
that made Alfred so eager to give the opportunities 
of education to others. 

With the many affairs of his kingdom continually to 
be attended to and with his own personal interests in 
learning and teaching, Alfred must always have been 
a very busy man. He could have accomplished as 
much as he did only by the most careful use of his 
time. There are several incidents in Alfred's life 
which show how methodical he was and how fully 
he realized the importance of doing things at their 
proper times. In order to learn Latin, he invited to 



ALFRED THE GREAT 85 

his court a certain Welsh priest named Asser, who 
afterward became Alfred's good friend, and at his 
death wrote his life. Alfred and Asser used to read 
together, and after a time, seeing that he might forget 
some of the interesting things which he wanted to 
remember, Alfred formed the habit of writing down 
in a book all passages in his reading which he thought 
might later be of importance. This book, called Al- 
fred's HANDBOOK, has unfortunately been lost, but 
whatever it contained, we may be sure that Alfred de- 
rived a great deal of benefit from having always at 
his hand for consultation such a daily record of his 
reading. Another evidence of Alfred's realization of 
the value of time is the invention of his candle-clock. 
In his day the English had no clocks, and told time 
only by the position of the sun. Such a method, how- 
ever, was not very useful at night or on days when 
the sky was clouded. Having portioned out the dif- 
ferent parts of the twenty- four hours of the day to 
their various uses, Alfred found it necessary to know 
the time more exactly than mere guessing could tell 
him. He accordingly had candles made, all of the 
same weight and size. These candles he marked 
along the side in twelve equal divisions, and the size 
of the candles was such that just six of them burned 
through twenty- four hours. Each division of each 
candle, therefore, burned one-third of one hour. This 
method of keeping time Alfred used wherever he hap- 
pened to be. Often, however, since draughts of air 
were continually blowing through the loosely built 
houses in which people then lived, or in the tents in 



86 IN OLDEST Ex\GLAND 

which Alfred spent so much of his time, the candles 
melted the wax so that it ran down the sides, and the 
six did not last entirely through the twenty-four 
hours. To get over this difficulty, Alfred had a lan- 
tern made. It consisted of a wooden frame with 
panes of very thin pieces of horn. When shaved quite 
thin, horn is almost as transparent as glass, and Al- 
fred's candles therefore gave as much light in the 
lantern as they did out of it, and moreover were com- 
pletely protected from the draughts of air. 

Alfred was born at a place called Wantage, in 
Berkshire, where his father had one of his various 
towns. He was only fifty-two years old when he died 
in the year 901. He was buried at Winchester, the 
capital of the West Saxons, in the New Minster, a 
church which Alfred himself began to build and which 
was finished by his son, Edward. England has pro- 
duced greater warriors and greater scholars than Al- 
fred, but among all English rulers there has never 
been one who has done his duty, both as king and 
man, more effectively and simply than Alfred. He de- 
fended his country in time of danger, and in times of 
peace he helped his people to live better and truer 
lives. He is called Alfred the Great, but he might 
as well be called Alfred the Good, for it was his good- 
ness, first of all, united with his power and courage 
and wisdom, which made him the remarkable man he 
was. 




VIII 



STORIES ABOUT KING ALFRED 



After a great man has died, it almost always hap- 
pens that a number of legends or stories grow up 
around his name. Often it is hard to tell whether 
these stories are true or not, and often it is quite cer- 
tain that they are not true. In spite of the fact, how- 
ever, that these stories may not be true, they are 
nearly always interesting as showing how the people 
of the time thought of the person who is made the 
hero of them. The events themselves may not actu- 
ally have happened, but the stories may still be true to 
the character of the person about whom they are 
told. And it is in this way that some of the stories 
that grew up around Alfred should be regarded. We 
cannot be sure that they are actually true, but that 
need not prevent us from taking them for what they 
are worth. 

One of the earliest of these stories is that which 
tells how Alfred learned to read. The story starts out 
by saying that Alfred was very fond of hunting and 
other games, and was very skillful in them, but that, 
although he was already twelve years old, he had 

87 



88 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

not yet learned to read. He was, however, deeply in- 
terested in English poetry, such as the bards recited, 
with its descriptions of battles and sea journeys and 
other adventures, and he had learned many of these 
poems by heart. Now one day his mother had a 
large volume of English poetry, all written out on 
fine parchment, with beautifully ornamented capital 
letters and illustrations, such as the old monks used to 
love to put in their manuscripts, and this book Alfred 
and his brothers admired greatly. But none of them 
could read it. Then their mother, seeing how their 
interest had been aroused, said: ''This beautiful book 
shall belong to that one of you who is first able to 
read it." Alfred immediately set to work under the 
direction of a teacher, and in a short time he had 
learned to read. And his mother, then, having heard 
him read through the songs of the book, kept her 
promise to him and gave him the book. 

Another famous story is that of Alfred and the 
cakes. Here again, if the events which this story tells 
did not actually happen, there is no reason why they 
might not have happened. Alfred, in this story, is 
supposed to be a fugitive from the Danes. He has 
fied to Athelney, and, for fear of his life, he is keep- 
ing himself hidden away as secretly as possible. He 
finds a refuge in the hut of a swineherd with whom 
he stays for some time. Now the swineherd knows 
who Alfred is, but on the principle that two can keep 
a secret, but three cannot, the swineherd's wife is not 
taken into the confidence of her husband and Alfred. 
One day the wife of the swineherd set some cakes by 



STORIES ABOUT KING ALFRED 89 

the fire to bake, and then, being busied about her other 
work, she asked Alfred, who was sitting by the fire 
mending his bow and arrows, to watch the cakes while 
they were baking. Alfred promised to look after the 
cakes, but his mind apparently was more intent on his 
bow and arrows than on the cakes, for he forgot all 
about them until the woman came running in, scold- 
ing him for letting the cakes burn. "You are glad 
enough to eat the cakes when they are done," she said; 
''but too lazy to turn them to keep them from burn- 
ing." 

There is a sequel to this story, which says that the 
swineherd, in whose hut Alfred took refuge, after- 
ward became Bishop of Winchester. His name was 
Denewulf, and although he was only a poor swine- 
herd. King Alfred, seeing that Denewulf was a man 
of great natural ability, had him educated and after- 
ward he gave him the high office of bishop in the 
church. Thus Denewulf 's faithfulness to Alfred in 
his time of trouble was rewarded, and Denewulf 's 
scolding wife, after she became a bishop's lady, doubt- 
less had more watchful servants than Alfred to look 
after her cakes when they were baking. 

A story, which, in different forms, is told of a great 
many heroes, is also told of Alfred. According to 
this story, he disguised himself as a Danish harper 
and went into the camps of the Danes and played on 
his harp and sang songs before the Danish king, Guth- 
rum. In this way he was able to observe the strength 
of his enemy, and to make his own attack upon them 
the more effective. 



90 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Finally, there is one other story of King Alfred 
which is worth knowing, the story of Alfred and St. 
Cuthbert. You may remember that St. Cuthbert was 
the person who had the vision of Aidan's soul being 
carried to Heaven by angels on the night of Aidan's 
death. Cuthbert afterward became a great leader and 
teacher in Northumberland, and after his death on 
account of his holiness and his good works, he came 
to be regarded as a saint. Alfred seems to have 
thought that he was under the special protection of 
St. Cuthbert. The story tells how St. Cuthbert helped 
Alfred out of his difficulties at Athelney, although it 
makes the mistake of calling Athelney Glastonbury 
and of saying that Alfred spent three years in this 
retreat. As a matter of fact, Alfred was in Athelney 
only from January to a short time after Easter. The 
story was told, evidently, by some one who was not 
familiar with all the details of Alfred's history and 
who consequently made some mistakes. But such as 
it is, the tale is as follows : 

When Alfred the King was driven out of his king- 
dom by the heathen Danes under Guthrum, he fled 
to the isle of Glastonbury, where he remained in hid- 
ing for three years. Toward the end of that time, 
on a certain day, it happened that all his people had 
gone out to catch fish for their food, leaving Alfred' 
alone at home with his wife, the queen, and only one 
servant. Then, unexpectedly, there appeared a pil- 
grim at the door, begging for food. "What have we 
to eat here in the house?" asked Alfred of the serv- 
ant. The servant answered and said : ''Sire, there is 



STORIES ABOUT KING ALFRED 91 

here in the house but one loaf of bread and a little 
wine." *'Then give half of the loaf and half of the 
wine to this poor pilgrim," said Alfred to the servant. 
As Alfred commanded, so it was done, and the pil- 
grim took the bread and the wine and, thanking the 
king for his charity, he went away. But afterward, 
when the servant went into the house again, what was 
his surprise to find that the loaf was whole and that 
there was just as much wine as before the stranger's 
share had been taken out! He wondered greatly at 
this marvel, and the king likewise, and they were 
puzzled to know also how this stranger had come to 
the island, since one could reach it only by water and 
the stranger had no boat. Soon after this the follow- 
ers of the king who had gone out to fish came back, 
and they had three boats full of fish. "Behold," they 
said, ''in this one day we have caught more fish than 
in all the three years we have been on this island." 
And again the king wondered greatly at the number 
of fish his men had caught. 

That night the king lay on his bed, but he could 
not sleep, and his mind dwelt on the strange things 
that had happened during the day. As he thus lay 
thinking, he was aware of a great light, as bright as 
the shining of the sun, and by this light he saw an 
old man, with black hair, who was clad in the dress of 
a priest. He wore a miter on his head, and in his 
right hand he held a book of the Gospels, richly dec- 
orated with gold and jewels. This old man gave his 
blessing to the king, and the king asked him who he 
was. "Alfred, my son," answered the man, "be of 



92 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

good cheer. I am the stranger to whom you gave the 
bread and wine to-day, and m.y name is Cuthbert, the 
soldier of Christ. And give ear now to what I shall 
tell you, for henceforth I shall be your guard and pro- 
tector, and the friend of your sons after you. Do, 
therefore, as I shall now tell you to do. Early in the 
morning go forth and blow your horn three times, so 
that all your enemies may hear it and be afraid. And 
before the end of the day you shall have five hundred 
warriors about you in answer to the blowing of your 
horn, all armed and ready for the fray. Others, too, 
shall come, and at the end of seven days all the peo- 
ple of this realm shall come to you and shall help you 
to win back your kingdom. With this army you shall 
fight your enemies, and have no fear but you shall 
overcome them. For you are chosen to be king over 
all Britain, and your sons after you shall be rulers, 
not only over the kingdom of your fathers, but over 
all the land of the English." With these words the 
light disappeared and the vision of St. Cuthbert 
passed away; but Alfred was greatly strengthened at 
heart, because he knew that, with God and St. Cuth- 
bert's aid, he would now be able to withstand his 
enemies. 

With the first light of the morning, Alfred arose 
and sailed over to the land and there he blew his horn 
three times, so that his enemies were filled with fear 
and his friends with joy at the sound of it. Straight- 
way his friends came to him until there were five hun- 
dred of them, the bravest and the strongest in the 
land, all ready to obey his commands. Then Alfred 



STORIES ABOUT KING ALFRED 93 

told them of the vision which he had seen the night 
before and of the message he had received from St. 
Cuthbert. All the men were greatly encouraged to 
hear these words, and when the whole army was gath- 
ered together they met the heathen Danes in battle and 
won a great victory over them. . And thus it came to 
pass that St. Cuthbert's words were fulfilled ; for Al- 
fred ruled over the whole realm of Britain and his son 
Edward was likewise ruler of the land after him. 




IX 



FARTHEST NORTH 



Long before the days of Nansen and of Peary, 
there were bold sailors who risked their lives on dan- 
gerous and distant voyages of discovery. Northmen 
and Angles and Saxons were fascinated by the mys- 
tery of the seas, by the desire to know what lay be- 
yond the level plain of waters which seemingly 
stretched away without beginning or end. The Ser- 
pent of the Earth the ancient Northmen called the 
ocean, because it wound in and out, and with its many 
coils encircled every inch of the many thousands of 
miles of the earth's coast line. To them it must have 
seemed an endless and an unfailingly interesting ad- 
venture to explore all these many windings of the old 
serpent-ocean. 

Very different, however, were the ships of these an- 
cient explorers from the great vessels which the mod- 
ern seaman has provided for him. In those days there 
were no steam engines to produce power to drive the 
ships, but the sailors must depend upon the winds, the 
ocean currents, and the oars which they worked with 
their own strong hands. Nor were the ships of that 

94 



FARTHEST NORTH 95 

time large enough to carry many men or great store 
of provisions. Worst of all, the ship captains had 
neither compass nor chart to guide them. When they 
were near land they steered their course by land- 
marks, and at night they could tell the directions by 
the stars. But when the skies .were clouded and the 
shores were hidden by the thick banks of fog which 
so often hang over them in those cold northern lands, 
they were at the mercy of the wind and weather, with 
no other help than their own uncertain sense of direc- 
tion. It takes courage now to sail off into an un- 
known region, but it took more courage in the days 
when the chances of safely returning were much less 
than they now are. 

Ohthere was a Northman who once came to visit 
King Alfred at his court in England, and who told 
Alfred the story of his voyage around the North Cape. 
Alfred fortunately wrote down what Ohthere told 
him, and still more fortunately for us, Alfred's narra- 
tive, written more than a thousand years ago, can still 
be read by any one who knows the language of that 
day. Ohthere told King Alfred that he lived farthest 
north of all Northmen, and that his home was in Nor- 
way on the shores of the North Sea. To the north of 
his home, he said, there still lay much land, but it was 
all waste land, where nobody lived, except a few 
Finns, here and there, who managed to keep alive by 
hunting in winter and fishing in summer. One time, 
said Ohthere, he thought he would like to find out how 
far the land really extended to the north, and also if 
any people lived beyond the waste land. He sailed 



96 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

north for three days, along the coast of Norway, keep- 
ing the land always on the starboard side and the open 
sea on the larboard. By that time he had gone as far 
north as the whale-hunters ever go. Then he sailed 
due north for another three days, at the end of which 
time he found that the land bent eastward, and he 
had to wait for a west wind and a trifle from the 
north. In this direction he sailed as far as he could 
go in four days, still keeping the land on his starboard 
side. At the end of the four days he had to wait for a 
due north wind, because the land bent there directly 
south. This means that by that time Ohthere had 
doubled the North Cape, and though he did not know 
it, had passed the northernmost point of land in 
Europe. 

For five days Ohthere sailed southward along the 
eastern side of the Scandinavian peninsula. He came 
then to a large river which flowed down from the 
land, and he sailed up this river. He said that he 
was afraid to sail past the river, because beyond the 
river the land was all inhabited and he feared the peo- 
ple might be hostile. Ohthere did not mention the 
name of this river, but it could have been no other 
than the river Dwina. In all the time since he had 
left home he had found no inhabited land until he 
came to this river. The land was entirely unoccupied 
except for a few hunters, fishers and fowlers, and 
these were all Finns. The people who lived on the 
other side of this great river were Permians, said 
Ohthere, and they had settled and cultivated their 
land very well. 



FARTHEST NORTH 97 

The Permians told Ohthere many stories both about 
their own land and about the country which lay be- 
yond them, but Ohthere could not be sure what was 
true and what was not true, because he did not see 
these things himself. For this reason he either did 
not think it worth while telling King Alfred these 
stories or King Alfred did not think it worth while 
writing them down, and so we know nothing about 
them. 

Other things, however, he did tell the king which he 
knew about. He said that he went on this voyage 
not only in order to explore the land, but also to get 
some tusks of the walrus, which are valuable as ivory, 
and also to get walrus hides, out of which to make 
ropes for ships. Some of the walrus tusks he brought 
wdth him as a present to King Alfred. But he said 
that the whales in that country were not very large, 
not more than seven ells long. In his own land, he 
said, there was the best whale-hunting. There the 
whales are eight and forty ells long, and the largest 
are fifty ells long. He said that he and five other 
men killed sixty of these whales in two days. 

Ohthere was a rich man in his own country, but 
his wealth consisted almost altogether of reindeer. 
He still had, when he visited King Alfred, six hun- 
dred reindeer left, and he had already sold some. 
Among those in his herd there were six decoy rein- 
deer. These are very valuable, because with them the 
Finns manage to catch wild reindeer. Although Oh- 
there was one of the foremost men in his land, he 
had only twenty cattle, and twenty sheep, and twenty 



98 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

swine, and what little land he plowed, he plowed with 
horses. This seemed very strange to King Alfred, 
for the Anglo-Saxons always used oxen for plowing. 
But the Northmen, said Ohthere, get most of their 
wealth from the taxes which they collect from the 
Finns. These taxes consist mainly of the skins of 
animals, of the feathers of birds, of whalebone, and 
of the ropes which are made from the hides of whales 
and seals. Each man pays a tax according to his 
rank. The highest in rank has to pay fifteen skins of 
the marten, five of the reindeer, and one bear skin, 
besides ten measures of feathers, a coat made either 
out of bear or otter skin, and two ship's ropes. Both 
of these ropes must be sixty ells long, and one must 
be made out of whale's hide, the other out of seal's. 
Ohthere said that the district in which he lived in 
Norway w^as called Helgeland, and that nobody lived 
north of him. He said that one time he sailed south 
from his home to a port called Sciringesheal. With a 
favorable wind, it took more than a month to sail this 
distance, if one camped on shore at night and sailed 
only in the daytime. On the starboard side, one 
would first have Iceland, and then the islands which 
lie between Iceland and Britain. Then comes the isl- 
and of Britain all the way until one reaches Sciringes- 
heal, and of course on the larboard side one has, dur- 
ing the whole voyage, the coast of Norway. Then 
Ohthere said he sailed eastward until he came to the 
land of the Angles and Saxons, where the English 
had lived before they came to Britain. And all this 
land he said now belonged to Denmark. 



FARTHEST NORTH 99 

What other voyages Ohthere made we do not 
know, for King Alfred has said nothing about them. 
We can only hope that he made many successful ones, 
that he got all the walrus tusks and whale-hide ropes 
he wanted, and that he finally returned safely to end 
his days among his reindeer and other possessions in 
his far northern home. But though King Alfred has 
told of no more voyages of Ohthere, he has told of 
a voyage which a sailor named Wulfstan made. 
Wulfstan set sail from a port in Denmark and sailed 
eastward until he came to the mouth of the Vistula 
river, and to the land of the Ests, who lived on the 
eastern shores of the Baltic ocean. Estland, said 
Wulfstan, is a large country, in which there are 
many towns and in each town a king. They have 
plenty of honey in Estland, and plenty of fish. The 
kings and the rich men, said Wulfstan, drink mare's 
milk, and the poor men and the slaves drink mead. 
But strangest of all, it seemed to Wulfstan, and to 
King Alfred, too, when he told him of it, was the 
way in which the people of Estland buried their dead. 

It was the custom of the Ests to burn the bodies of 
the dead, but before they did so, they allowed them to 
lie in state for a long time, sometimes a month, 
sometimes two months. The kings and the rich men 
lie in state sometimes a half year, depending on the 
amount of their property. All the time the body is 
lying in the house, the dead man's friends and rela- 
tives spend the days in feasting and drinking and in 
the playing of games. Most of the dead man's prop- 
erty they use up in this way, but on the day when the 



loo IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

body is to be buried, they run races for what is left. 
The races are arranged in this fashion. All the prop- 
erty is divided into five or six parts, according to the 
amount of it, and the largest and most valuable por- 
tion is put down on the ground about a mile from the 
town. Then they place a second portion^ smaller and 
less valuable, a little nearer to the town, and a third 
portion, still smaller and less valuable, a little nearer 
to the town than the second portion, and so on until 
all the portions are thus put down on the earth. Then 
all the people in the neighborhood who have swift 
horses gather together about five or six miles from 
the place where the largest portion is placed on the 
earth, and at a signal they all race toward the prop- 
erty. The man who has the swiftest horse comes to 
the largest portion first, and it then belongs to him. 
The man who has the next swiftest horse gets the 
second portion, and so on until all the portions are 
taken. And if there are more racers than portions, 
then of course some get nothing. After the dead 
man's property is all spent in this way, in the funeral 
feasting and in the racing for the remainder, then the 
body is borne out and burned, together with the' 
weapons and garments that had belonged to the man 
when he was alive. It is considered a great disgrace 
among the Ests, said Wulfstan, if a single bone is 
found unburned. Moreover, says Wulfstan, the Ests 
possess an art by which they can create cold, and by 
applying this cold to the bodies of their dead they 
are able to keep them above ground so long without 
decay. If you set down a vessel of ale or of water, 



FARTHEST NORTH loi 

says Wulfstan, the Ests can cause it to be frozen 
over, whether it be winter or summer. 

Wulfstan does not say, like Ohthere, that he tells 
only what he has seen, and perhaps his story of the 
art of making artificial ice among the Ests needs to 
be taken with a grain of salt. It may be true, how- 
ever, and certainly Wulfstan was not the last traveler 
to come back from strange lands with true stories 
that were wonderful and hard to believe. 




X 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG 



At a time when the EngHsh were greatly in need 
of strong rulers, they were fortunate enough to have 
three brave and able kings, one after the other. The 
first of these was Alfred, who checked the Danes in 
what threatened to be a complete conquest of Eng- 
land. The second was Alfred's son, Edward, who 
began to win back from the Danes the lands which 
Alfred was forced to yield to them by the terms of 
the treaty between the English and Danes at Wed- 
more. And the third was Edward's son, Alfred's 
grandson, and his name was Athelstan. It was Athel- 
stan who completed the work of Alfred and Edward, 
becoming, by his great victory at Brunanburg, the 
master of all England, both Danish and English. 

We first hear of Athelstan when he was a little 
boy. Apparently he was a favorite with his grand- 
father Alfred, for when Athelstan was six years old 
Alfred made him a present of a purple cloak, a belt 
set with jewels, and a little sword with a golden scab- 
bard. It was at an early age, therefore, that the 

102 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG 103 

young warrior began his training as a soldier. And 
as he grew up he must have had plenty of opportuni- 
ties for seeing how warfare was carried on and for 
disciplining himself as a fighter and a leader. For 
there was continual battle between Edward and the 
Danes during the whole of Edward's reign. Athel- 
stan was thirty years old when Edward died, and the 
Danes, thinking this a likely time to regain what 
they had lost, stirred up hostilities on all sides against- 
Athelstan, the new king. But Athelstan had not 
grown up in a camp of soldiers for nothing. He^ 
fought his enemies at every turn, and though he was 
not always successful, on the whole he gained more 
than he lost. He first won back the regions in the 
south of England which had been taken away from 
the English and then he turned his attention to the 
north. 

The Danes saw that it was time for them to make 
as strong" a stand against Athelstan as they could. 
Athelstan had gathered together a great army, which 
was commanded by himself and his brother Edmund. 
The Danes on their side had an army which was the 
largest that had ever been seen in England. It was 
made up of Danes and Scots and Welshmen, in short 
of all the people who were opposed to the English in 
the north of England. There were several kings in 
this army, but the chief commander was King Aiilaf, 
a Dane, who was an old and experienced warrior. It 
wa.s in the year 937 that the two armies came together 
and faced each other at a place called Brunanburg in 
Northumberland. 



104 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

The story is told that before the battle King Anlaf 
came into the English camp disguised as a bard to 
spy out the strength of his enemies, and that he sang 
and played on his harp before King Athelstan and his 
men. When Anlaf had finished playing, according 
to the story, Athelstan rewarded him with a present 
of gold. Anlaf took the gold because he w^as afraid 
he would be found out if he refused it; but as he 
thought it beneath the dignity of a king such as he 
was to keep money which had been paid to him as 
though he were a common minstrel playing for hire, 
when he got away he buried it in the earth. One of 
Athelstan's soldiers saw him burying the gold and, 
recognizing that the minstrel was Anlaf in disguise, 
he told the king that Anlaf had been in his camp, had 
found out how strong his army was, and had seen 
where the king's tent was pitched. Athelstan asked 
this soldier why he had not taken Anlaf prisoner 
when he recognized him and had not delivered him 
into Athelstan's hands. But the soldier replied that 
at one time he had been in Anlaf's service, and con- 
sequently the very same pledge of loyalty that he had 
given to Athelstan he had before given to Anlaf. 
And he added that if he had been untrue to his word 
to Anlaf, how could Athelstan ever expect him to be 
true to him? He advised Athelstan to move his tent 
to another position, however, and to await the begin- 
ning of the battle. 

Athelstan did as the soldier suggested, and soon 
afterwards the Bishop of Sherborne, who had just 
reached the camp with his troops, pitched his tents 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG 105 

in the place where Athelstan's had been. That night 
Anlaf and his men broke into the English camp, and, 
going straight to the place where they supposed the 
king to be, they entered the Bishop of Sherborne's 
tent and killed him. Discovering then that this was 
not the king, they passed on -until they found the 
place where the king's tent was now pitched. Lit- 
tle suspecting that the Danes would make an attack 
in the night, Athelstan was still asleep when they ap- 
peared before his tent. Awakened by the noise of 
fighting, he sprang up and called his men to arms. 
He reached out his hand for his sword, but unfor- 
tunately it fell out of the scabbard, and in the dark- 
ness he was unable to find it. Then breathing a 
prayer to St. Aldhelm, he put his hand again to the 
scabbard, and there miraculously, as the story tells, 
he found a sword in answer to his prayer. With this 
sword he led the fight against Anlaf, and won over 
all his enemies a glorious victory. 

Whether this story of the sword and Anlaf 's night 
attack is altogether true or not, it is quite certain 
that Athelstan did win a great victory over his ene- 
mies at Brunanburg. Some Englishman who may 
have been present at the battle itself made a poem 
about it and this poem we still have. The poem tells 
how they fought from early morning till late in the 
evening, and how five kings lay dead on that battle- 
field, as well as seven of the earls of Anlaf. The 
Danes had no need to rejoice, says the poet, at that 
day's work, when, with their little remnant, they 
crowded their ships afloat and sailed away from Eng- 



io6 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

land. Behind them they left many a one dead on 
the field of battle, for the black raven with horny 
beak, and the dusky-coated eagle and the gray wolf 
of the forest to feast upon. Never before, he con- 
tinues, since the Angles and Saxons came up over 
the broad seas w^as there such great slaughter in the 
island of the English. 

This is the story of Athelstan's great victory over 
the Danes at Brunanburg as it is told by the English 
historians. Luckily, however, the Danes have also 
left an account of the battle in one of the Norse 
sagas, and this account tells us many things which the 
English historians left out. The battle was one that 
the Danes were not likely soon to forget, and their 
bards and minstrels must often have sung the story of 
the great fight at Brunanburg. According to the 
Norse saga, Athelstan and Edmund had in their army 
a great many Danish soldiers, and it is interesting 
to see that by this time some of the Danes in Eng- 
land were willing to take sides with the English. 
These Danish soldiers in the English army were com- 
manded by two brothers from Norway, Egil and 
Thorolf, who naturally are made a great deal of in 
the Norse saga. Now it cannot be supposed that Egil 
and Thorolf were fighting on the side of Athelstan 
merely out of love for the English. As a matter of 
fact they were fighting for pay, and they expected a 
reward of gold and other treasure if they helped 
Athelstan to win a victory. As bold and hardy, and 
almost as savage and fierce as wild beasts of the 
forest, these two brothers bore the brunt of the bat- 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG 107 

tie at Brtmanburg, and Athelstan had reason enough 
to be grateful for what they did on that day. 

The saga says that after Athelstan and Anlaf had 
collected their armies, King Athelstan sent messages 
to King Anlaf ^ offering to fight a pitched battle with 
him. Now it was a common custom in that time for 
two armies to agree to fight at a certain time and 
at a certain place, and after such an agreement was 
made, it was considered a disgrace for either side to 
commit any act of hostility until the battle began. 
After the battlefield was chosen, it was marked off 
with hazel branches, so that everybody might know 
just where the battle was to take place. Both Athel- 
stan and Anlaf agreed that they would bring their 
armies to this place which they had chosen for their 
battlefield, and which, according to the custom, had 
been marked off with hazel branches. They agreed 
also that whichever one got there first should wait 
one week for the other before he should consider 
that the truce was broken. 

The two armies then began gradually to assemble 
at the battlefield, the men of Anlaf's army pitching 
their tents at the north end of the field and the men 
of Athelstan's army at the south end. The field was 
very level, so that neither side had the advantage. 
Athelstan's men had a great many tents, stretching 
all the way across the field. In reality, however, 
these tents were mostly for show, since there was no 
one at all in every third tent, and not a great many 
in the others. But when Anlaf's men came over to 
visit at the English tents, as they might very well do 



io8 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

since there was peace between Danes and English 
until the battle began, then all the English came out 
in front of their tents, saying tliat their army was so 
great that there was not room for them all in the 
tents. And as they did not allow Anlaf's men to 
enter any of the tents, the Danes were greatly im- 
pressed by what they saw. 

The English, however, were not as confident as 
they seemed. For one thing they needed more men, 
and, for another, Athelstan their leader had not yet 
arrived. They were expecting him day by day with 
a large army, but the time passed and at last the week 
of waiting which had been agreed on by Athelstan 
and Anlaf went by, and still Athelstan had not come. 
Then the English who had gathered at the battlefield, 
fearing that Anlaf might attack them as soon as the 
week was up, sent messengers to Anlaf under the pre- 
tense that these messengers came from Athelstan. 
The messengers said to Anlaf that Athelstan was all 
ready for battle with a vast army, but that he was 
greatly disturbed at the thought of the bloodshed 
that would take place if the two armies fought. The 
messengers said then that Athelstan would give them 
a large sum of money, a silver shilling for every 
plow in Anlaf 's kingdom, if the Danes would with- 
draw from the battle and become the friends of the 
English. This supposed offer of Athelstan's was de- 
bated back and forth for a long time in the Danish 
camp, some urging that the money should be ac- 
cepted, and others saying that it should be refused, 
because if Athelstan wanted peace, they said he would 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG 109 

offer more if this first offer was refused. They fi- 
nally agreed to send the messengers back to ask for 
more, and the messengers, glad of the delay, asked 
for a truce of three days, one day to go back to 
their camp, a second day to discuss the matter with 
King Athelstan and a third day to return with Ath- 
elstan's reply to the Danish camp. To this the Danes 
agreed, and when the English found, on reaching 
their camp, that Athelstan had not yet arrived, on the 
third day they returned to the Danish camp with an- 
other supposed offer from their king. They said that, 
besides all he had offered before, Athelstan would 
give a shilling to every freeborn man in the Danish 
army, a mark in gold to every atheling in command 
of a band of thanes, and five marks in gold to every 
earl. Again the Danes debated the offer, and at last 
Anlaf decided to accept it, on condition that Athel- 
stan granted to him also the whole of Northumber- 
land, with all the taxes and other income from the 
country. The English messengers asked for another 
three days to consider this proposal, and they re- 
Cjuested that at the end of the three days Anlaf 
should send messengers to the English camp to learn 
Athelstan's decision. To this the Danes agreed, for 
the English messengers said they thought that Ath- 
elstan would gladly accept Anlaf's terms. 

When the English got back to their camp, they 
were rejoiced to find that Athelstan had arrived at 
last and that the army was all ready for battle. They 
then told King Athelstan how^ they had made these 
offers to the Danes in order to prolong the truce, and 



no IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

the king had his answer ready for the Danish mes- 
sengers when Ihey arrived. ''Tell your king," said 
he, ''that we will give him leave to go away on these 
conditions : that he return to me all the booty he has 
wrongfully taken in the land of the English, and that 
he acknowledge himself hereafter my subject and my 
man. This and no other tribute we will yield him." 
When the Danish messengers had heard this, they 
hurried back to their camp, where they arrived about 
midnight. When they had awakened Anlaf and had 
told him their message, and had told him also that 
Athelstan had only that day' come back to the Eng- 
lish camp, then Anlaf saw that the English had 
played a trick on him. During all these days that he 
had been trying to squeeze more tribute out of them, 
the English had been gathering together more men 
and strengthening themselves in every way. But 
Anlaf decided to delay no longer, and he immediately 
got his army ready for battle. 

The English, on their side, were also soon ready, 
and Athelstan, in arranging his forces, divided them 
into two parts. One of these divisions Athelstan 
himself commanded, and at the van he placed the 
most daring of his men, with Egil, the Dane, at their 
head. The other division he wished to put under the 
command of Thorolf, Egil's brother. But Egil did 
not approve of this. "I do not want to be separated 
from Thorolf," said he; ''put us in the place where 
there will be the hardest fighting, but put us there 
together." But Thorolf said, "Let the king put us 
where he pleases, for it is our business to do as the 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG iii 

king commands." ''Have yom* will then, brother," 
answered Egil at this, "but I know^ that this is a 
change 1 shall deeply regret." In spite of Egil's pro- 
test, therefore, the divisions were made as the king 
commanded. 

Neither Thorolf nor Egil wore a coat of mail in 
this battle, but each had a broad and thick shield, a 
helmet to protect the head, and a sword. Thorolf's 
sword was a strong and good weapon which he called 
The Long, and Egil carried a well-tried blade w^hich 
was named The Viper. It was not long before the 
fighting began in earnest, and Thorolf and Egil were 
in the very thickest of it. In the excitement of the 
battle, however, it happened that Thorolf pressed so 
far forward that there were very few of his men 
about him. Just then a band of the enemy rushed in 
from a side where they were not expected, and set- 
ting upon Thorolf, they pierced him through with 
many spears. When Thorolf's standard bearer, who 
had pressed forward with his leader, saw that Tho- 
rolf had fallen, he fell back with his standard into the 
ranks of Thorolf's men. The fighting continued, but 
the English side retreated still further, and the enemy 
raised a shout of victory when they saw that Thorolf 
was slain. When Egil heard that shout from his part 
of the field and when he looked over and saw that 
Thorolf's standard was retreating, he knew that Tho- 
rolf was not following it. He rushed forward, and 
soon learning what had happened from Thorolf's 
men, he drove the soldiers back into the battle. With 
The Viper in his hand, he led the attack, and so fast 



112 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

and furious were the blows he struck that it was not 
long before he had well avenged the death of his 
brother and had put this division of the enemy to 
flight. Seizing his opportunity, Athelstan followed 
up Egil's attack, and he made such a fierce onslaught 
on the center of Anlaf's army that it was soon scat- 
tered in flight and Anlaf himself lay dead on the 
field of battle. Egil and the rest of the English forces 
pursued the fleeing Danes, and they showed no mercy 
to any they caught. Egil especially was filled with 
the fury of an enraged lion, and long after the others 
had given up the pursuit, he sought out the escaping 
Danes and slew every one he overtook. When he 
had killed as many as he wanted, he came back to 
where Thorolf's body lay, and prepared it with all 
the proper ceremonies for burial. He put a gold ring 
on each of Thorolf's arms, and then after the body 
had been placed in the grave, all of Egil's men to- 
gether built up a great mound of earth and stones 
over it. 

Having cared for the burial of his dead comrade 
and brother, Egil went back to Athelstan's camp, 
where all the English were feasting and rejoicing 
over their great victory. When Athelstan saw Egil 
come into the hall where he and all his men were 
gathered together, he sent word that Egil should 
be given a place on the high seat on the side of the 
hall opposite to him. Egil sat down and threw his 
shield on the floor in front of him. He still had his 
helmet on his head, and he placed The Viper across 
his knees. He said not a word, but at times he drew 



THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURG 113 

the sword half out of its scabbard and then slammed 
it back again. Egil had a wide forehead and very 
heavy eyebrows; his nose was short but very broad 
and his lips were long and thick. His chin and jaws 
were also very broad, and he had an extremely thick 
neck and large shoulders. His eyes were black and 
his skin was dark, and his hair was the color of the 
gray wolf. Egil looked savage and fierce when he 
was angry, and now he was both angry and sorrow- 
ful. He would not have the drink that was carried to 
him, but he sat there silently and moved his huge 
eyebrows up and down, one after the other; but the 
saga does not say that a single tear came to his eyes. 
Athelstan sat in his high seat, opposite Egil, and he 
likewise had his sword on his knee. After they had 
sat thus for a time, Athelstan drew his sword from 
its sheath, and taking a fine and large gold ring from 
his arm, he hung it on the point of the blade of the 
sword. Then he arose, and walking across the floor, 
he held the ring out to Egil over the fire. Egil stood 
up, took The Viper from its scabbard and strode 
toward the king. He stuck his sword into the ring, 
and drawing it to him, he walked back to his seat. 
The king sat down and then Egil sat down. Egil put 
the ring on his arm and after he had done so, his 
brows became smoother. His sword and his helmet 
he put down in front of him with his shield, and then 
he took a deer-horn which was carried to him and 
drank the drink that was in it. 

After this Egil spoke with the men and drank his 
share at the feasting. The king had two chests filled 



114 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

with silver brought into the hall, and these he gave to 
Egil, partly for himself and partly for his father to 
pay for the death of his son Thorolf. "And if you 
will stay with me," he said to Egil, '1 will give you 
honor and property and rank as great as you your- 
self may choose." Egil was greatly pleased at these 
gracious words of the king, and he thanked him for 
his gifts and his friendly promises. All that winter 
Egil remained with the king, but when spring came 
he told the king that he must go back to Norway and 
care for the needs of Asgerd, Thorolf 's wife, and for 
the needs of their children, if any were living. The 
king told Egil that he might go if he thought he 
must, but that he would rather Egil stayed in Eng- 
land. *T go first where it is my duty to go," said 
Egil, after he had thanked the king, ''but certainly if 
I can I shall return to claim the promises you have 
made me." Then Egil got his ship ready and soon 
after he sailed away with a hundred men to Norway. 




XI 



THE ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY 



In the southern part of England, not far from the 
isle of Athelney where King Alfred found a refuge 
from the Danes, there is a very ancient town called 
Glastonbury. Though now the water has all been 
drained off, the whole region in which this town lies 
was in earlier days marshy and swampy, and Glaston- 
bury, like Athelney, was originally built on an island 
of solid ground surrounded by the waters of the 
marsh. From very early times men have dwelt at 
Glastonbury. Even before the coming of the Ro- 
mans to Britain, the original natives of the island prob- 
ably had a town here, and we know that Glastonbury 
was the site of a temple in the Roman days of Britain. 
To the Celts, after they became Christians, the 
isle of Glastonbury was a sacred place, and concern- 
ing it they had many traditions and beliefs. The Cel- 
tic name was one which meant the Isle of Glass, the 
still waters of the inland lakes and streams in which 
the island stood suggesting the name because of their 
glassy surface. Another name which the Celts had 
for the place was Avalon, and they believed that it 
was to this place King Arthur came at his death. *'I 

115 



ii6 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

am going a long way," so the poet makes him say 
to his faithful friend, Sir Bedevere, 

"To the island-valley of Avilion, 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death. 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. 

Here, according to the old stories, it was supposed 
that Arthur would remain, sleeping the sleep of death, 
until the world was ready for him again, and then he 
will return and renew his rule among men. 

In this happy isle of Avalon, the Anglo-Saxons 
after they had settled in England likewise found a 
peaceful retreat. They called the place Glastonbury, 
this name being merely an English translation of the 
Celtic word which means Isle of Glass. The Celts, 
who were Christianized long before the Anglo-Sax- 
ons, had established an abbey church at Glastonbury, 
and after the Anglo-Saxons became Christians, they 
continued and enlarged this church until it became an 
important center of religion and learning. During 
the early years of the Anglo-Saxons, Glastonbury 
prospered in peace. With the coming of the Danes to 
England, however, Glastonbury suffered as all other 
churches and monasteries suffered. It was not only 
plundered by the heathen, but in the troubled times 



THE ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY 117 

during which the English gave so much of their en- 
ergy to fighting the Danes, places of learning and 
religion were allowed to fall into neglect. Yet prob- 
ably at no time was Glastonbury entirely without its 
teachers and students, and after the battle of Brunan- 
burg, w^hen the Danes had been brought to terms for 
the time being by Athelstan, it was from this monas- 
tery at Glastonbury that a great leader of men came 
forth to teach the English again some of the things 
which they had forgotten during the many years of 
warfare. 

This leader of men was named Dunstan. He was 
a member of a noble family, and when he was still 
a young boy, his parents sent him to be taught at 
Glastonbury Abbey. Dunstan had a quick and in- 
quiring mind, and though the teaching at Glaston- 
bury was at that time probably poor, his own indus- 
try and enthusiasm made up for some of its defects. 
After a few years Dunstan's friends procured for 
him an invitation to come to King Athelstan's court 
as a kind of squire or member of the king's body- 
guard. In this way Dunstan had opened to him the 
possibility of a political career, and as he was a very 
ambitious youth, he must have considered this his 
first step toward fortune. But Dunstan's stay at 
King Athelstan's court was of short duration. He 
seems to have excited the envy of the other youths in 
Athelstan's household, who had probably never been 
to school at all, by reason of his greater learning and 
skill in arts with which these young soldiers were 
generally unfamiliar. They accused him, therefore, 



ii8 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

of having to do with magic, and in the end succeeded 
in having him dismissed from Athelstan's service. 
As he was riding away from the town, he was set 
upon by a band of his young companions, was bound 
hand and foot, and then thrown into a pool of water, 
probably to see whether he would float or sink, the 
popular superstition of that time being that a person 
who had to do with the black arts would not sink in 
water. Since Dunstan's ''magic" consisted merely of 
greater intelligence than the other young courtiers 
possessed, nothing could have saved him from drown- 
ing, if his tormentors had not had mercy on him. 
After this unfortunate experience in the courts of 
the great, the young Dunstan turned his thoughts more 
and more seriously to a question that he had often 
considered before, and in the end he decided to give 
up the effort to make a public career as one of the 
king's officers, and to devote his life entirely to the 
service of the church. He therefore was consecrated 
as a monk, and returning to Glastonbury soon after, 
he began his real life's work as a teacher and a re- 
former. Dunstan did not decide to become a monk 
except after much hesitation and careful reflection. 
He thought, for a time, that he might be able to ac- 
complish as much good in the world if he married 
and took on himself all the other cares of the worldly 
life, as he could by living the solitary life of the 
monk, n Dunstan were living to-day and had this 
matter to decide, no doubt he would conclude that 
his first opinion was right. But at the time in which 
he lived, the English were still in need of the forms 



THE ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY 119 

and the strict discipline of the monastic way of liv- 
ing. If Dunstan had decided to live the life of the 
world, he could not have brought about his reforms 
in teaching and religion, nor could he even have ac- 
quired and held the great power in political matters 
which he was soon to have in his hands. 

For some years Dunstan remained at Glastonbury, 
studying by himself and teaching those who came to 
be taught. He lived a very peaceful and quiet life, al- 
most the life of a hermit. But if his life was quiet 
externally, it was very active mentally. Dunstan was 
always earnest in the endeavor to bring about better 
order and system in the life of the monasteries with 
which he was concerned, and since the monks had 
grown very lax in the course of time, he found plenty 
to do to persuade them to a stricter mode of life. 
Besides, Dunstan was interested in many different 
things, such as music, painting, the copying of manu- 
scripts, and building. He played a great deal on the 
harp and always carried his harp with him. He was 
a good workman, too, especially in gold, silver and 
other metals. The things which he made were usu- 
ally such as could be used in the church services, for 
example, bells^ cups, plates, candlesticks, organs, and 
other objects. Throughout his life Dunstan always 
enjoyed working in his shop, and being by nature of 
an excitable temperament, such occupation was good 
for him. Like many men who live a great deal by 
themselves and who think a great deal, Dunstan im- 
agined he had visions of mysterious things. He 
thought, for example, that the Devil often appeared 



I20 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

to him in person, and a story that grew up after Dun- 
stan's death told how the Devil appeared one day at 
the window of Dunstan's shop and how Dunstan seized 
him by the nose with his pincers and held him until 
he begged for mercy. 

Glastonbury soon became, under Dunstan's direc- 
tion, a busy and prosperous seat of learning. After 
a time Dunstan himself was made Abbot of Glaston- 
bury, and then he was able to carry out his plans 
more fully. The old buildings were repaired and new 
ones were put up. Many gifts were given to the 
monastery, and it became one of the finest and rich- 
est in England. Large numbers of students came 
there for instruction, and many pilgrims made the 
journey to Glastonbury on account of the reputa- 
tion for holiness which the place acquired. When 
King Athelstan died, he was buried at Glastonbury, 
and he is only one of a number of English kings who 
from the time of Arthur found their last resting place 
in this abbey. 

After the long and successful reign of Athelstan, 
England was governed by a group of kings whose 
reigns were short and unhappy. These kings all had 
names a good deal alike. The first was Edmund, the 
second was Edred, the third was Edwy, and the 
fourth and last of this group was Edgar. It was in 
these unsettled times that Dunstan began to take a 
larger part in the activities of public life than he had 
done hitherto. He became a kind of prime minister 
to King Edred, and, with a few interruptions, he held 
this position almost to the end of his life. Dunstan 



THE ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY 121 

was especially influential in the reign of King Edgar. 
Although this king was neither a very strong nor a 
very good man personally, nevertheless, with Dun- 
stan's aid, he governed the country so well that his 
reign was long remembered as a happy and prosperous 
one. Dunstan was made Archbishop of Canterbury 
by Edgar, and he was really the power behind the 
throne that made Edgar's government effective. 
During Edgar's reign of sixteen years the English 
were so little disturbed by wars and other troubles 
that the king came to be called Edgar the Peace- 
ful. At one time eight kings who had accepted him 
as their master came to him at Chester to do him 
homage. These eight kings rowed Edgar on the 
river Dee from the town of Chester to the minster of 
St. John outside the walls, and then, after they had 
ofifered prayer at the minster, they rowed him back 
to the town again. No king of England had ever 
before had such a royal honor paid to him. The 
story is told that one of these kings, who was a king 
of Scotland and whose name was Kenneth, was one 
day at a feast, and he said to his friends, 'Tt is a 
strange thing that so many kings as we are should all 
do service to this one man, who is so much smaller than 
any one of us." Now although Edgar was a small 
man, he was a brave one. Soon after this, having 
heard of Kenneth's speech, Edgar took him out into 
a wood where they were entirely alone, and bringing 
forth two swords, he gave one to Kenneth and kept 
one himself. ''You have said," began Edgar, "that 
I am a small man, and that it is strange for a small 



122 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

man to rule over big men. Take now your sword, 
and let us see which of us is the stronger, and let 
us see if you can use your sword to as good effect as 
your tongue." Kenneth, however^ refused to draw, 
his sword against Edgar, whom he acknowledged as 
his overlord and king, and falling at Edgar's feet, he 
asked pardon for what he had said, declaring that his 
words were not meant in earnest, but merely as a jest. 
So Edgar and Kenneth parted in peace and were bet- 
ter friends after that than they had been before. 

During the time that he was Edgar's prime minis- 
ter and was Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan ac- 
complished a great deal of good in England. He re- 
stored many of the old monasteries, and the monks 
who had become careless and neglectful of their 
duties he replaced by others who were more serious. 
England was in danger for a time of falling back into 
a kind of barbarism, and it was Dunstan who saved 
it from this danger. The country was now full of 
heathen and barbarous Danes, most of whom had 
settled down cjuietly on their lands; but these Danes 
were especially in need of instruction and in need of 
an example of a better kind of life than they were 
accustomed to, and this instruction and this example 
were provided by Dunstan and his reformed monas- 
teries. With all his other activities of church and 
state, however, Dunstan always found time to work 
in his shop. He seems to have felt that his mind 
worked best if his hands also had something to do. 
He consequently encouraged people to take an in- 
terest in manufacturing useful and beautiful objects. 



THE ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY 123 

In this he showed great wisdom, recognizing that for 
those who did not want to be monks or scholars, 
there was something else worth doing besides 
fighting. 

Dunstan was sixty-three years old when he died 
in the year 988. The last years of his life were 
spent quietly at Canterbury, where great throngs of 
people came to listen to his words. But after a period 
of peace, unhappy times were coming for England 
again. When Edgar died, he was followed by Athel- 
red as king, who was one of the worst kings the Eng- 
lish have ever had. Athelred unwisely tried to get 
along without Dunstan's counsel, but lacking ability 
himself, the affairs of the country soon fell into dis- 
order. And now again and for the last time, great 
armies of Danes began to pour into England under 
the leadership of the Danish kings Swegen and Cnut. 
Dunstan happily did not live long enough to see the 
final conquest of England by these invaders, for he 
died ten years after Athelred became king. 

In earlier days when men thought more about the 
saints than they do to-day, it was customary for 
each trade or occupation to have its particular patron 
saint. Thus the patron saint of the shoemakers was 
St. Crispin, and the patron saint of travelers and 
wayfaring people was St. James. The patron saint 
of musicians was St. Cecilia, because Cecilia was be- 
lieved to have invented the organ, and to have played 
upon this instrument so sweetly that even the angels 
came down from heaven to listen to her. And since 
Dunstan had always been interested in handicrafts 



THE ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY 125 

and was himself a skillful workman, after his death 
he was often chosen by the goldsmiths and the work- 
ers in metal as their patron saint. 

Few men have done so many things and done them 
so well as St. Dunstan. He was a teacher and 
preacher, and he built and organized many places 
of religion and learning in England. He was besides 
a great statesman, directing the policies of the coun- 
try in an unusually difficult and dangerous period. 
And finally he was interested not only in the affairs 
of the great world, but he was broad enough to see 
that labor well done with the hands also has its 
dignity and worth. 




XII 



A LESSON IN LATIN 



The school-boy of a thousand years ago probably 
differed very little from the school-boy of to-day, but 
the kind of schools he attended and the subjects he 
studied have changed greatly in the past ten centuries. 
In the first place, schools in oldest England were al- 
most always held in connection with some church or 
monastery, and the classes were taught by priests and 
monks. The pupils who attended the schools gener- 
ally expected to enter the church in some office or 
other, because at that time all the learned callings 
were under the direction of the church. So close was 
the union between the church and the school in earlier 
days that the term clerk came to mean almost the 
same thing as priest, and the word clergyman, which 
literally should mean nothing more than clerkly man, 
to this day is applied only to the priest or minister of 
a church. 

Even while the boys were only students in the mon- 
astery schools and were still too young to be admitted 
to any of the formal orders of the church, they were 
trained to take part in the church services. They 
sang in the choir, learning the psalms, responses and 

126 



A LESSON IN LATIN 127 

hymns, in Latin, o£ course, since all the service was in 
Latin, and they performed such other duties as could 
be intrusted to acolytes and altar-boys. The services 
of the church were very numerous, being in all seven 
for each day; the first was matins, at dawn in the 
morning, and the others occurred at regular inter- 
vals until the last, called compline, was reached at 
nine o'clock, in the evening. To anyone who could 
not understand Latin these services must often have 
seemed long and tedious. 

But Latin was the one thing which every school- 
boy had to study and know a thousand years ago. A 
knowledge of this language was the universal test 
by which one could tell a clerk or learned man from 
the unlearned. The ability to speak Latin had some- 
what the value of a college degree nowadays, and it 
admitted persons who possessed that accomplishment 
not only to the society of scholars, but also to many 
special privileges. In those days it was not enough 
to be able to read Latin, one must also be able to 
speak it. The advantage in having a speaking knowl- 
edge of the language was that if one chanced to be in 
a foreign country the language of which was unfa- 
miliar, one could always find somebody who could 
talk in Latin. In many ways this was a great saving, 
for if one traveled much, no matter how many dif- 
ferent countries were visited, it was possible to get 
along with Latin. 

The study of Latin consequently held a very im- 
portant place in the school life of the boy in these old- 
time schools. Since this was long before the in- 



128 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

vention of printing and therefore long before the day 
of printed books, and since manuscript books were 
rare and costly, the teaching of all subjects, Latin as 
well as others, had to be done mainly by speech and 
conversation. Just how this teaching was done we 
are able to see very well from one of these conversa- 
•tions, or colloquies, as they were called, which was 
written down and has been preserved to this day. 
This Latin colloquy was written by a famous Anglo- 
Saxon scholar and preacher named Alfric, and it is 
particularly interesting because it shows what sorts 
of things boys liked to talk about in those days. The 
conversation was carried on in Latin as much as pos- 
sible, but the teacher doubtless stopped often to ex- 
plain unfamiliar words or phrases in English. 

In Alfric's colloquy a group of boys are supposed 
to come to the teacher with a request that he teach 
them to speak Latin. The teacher says he is quite 
willing to do so, and he begins to question the boys, 
each of whom takes the part of a different character. 

Teacher. What sort of things is it 3^ou want to 
learn to speak about? 

Boys. We don't care what it is, if only we can 
learn to speak correctly. 

Teacher. Very well, then. But I suppose you 
•won't mind being whipped if you are too slow at your 
lesson? 

Boys. We would rather be whipped and know 
Latin, than not whipped and ignorant of Latin. But 
we know how kind you are, and that we shan't be 
punished unless we deserve it. 



A LESSON IN LATIN 129 

Teacher. But I asked you what you want to talk 
about. What is your occupation ? 

Boy (only one answers here). I expect to be a 
monk, and I sing every day the seven services, and 
this keeps me very busy. Between times, however, I 
want to learn to speak Latin. 

Teacher. What do your companions do ? 

Boy. Some are plow-boys, some are shepherds, 
some oxherds, some hunters, some fishers, some fowl- 




Plowing 



ers, some merchants, some cobblers, some salt-makers, 
and some are bakers. 

Teacher. Well, plow-boy, what say you? How 
do you carry on your work ? 

Plow-boy. O Sir, I work very hard. At sunrise, 
I drive out my oxen to the fields and yoke them to the 
plow. No matter how bad the weather is, I can't stay 
at home, but having yoked my oxen and having fast- 
ened on the plow-share and coulter, I must plow every 
day an acre or more. 

Teacher. Do you have any one with you when 

you plow? 

Plow-boy. I have a boy who drives the oxen 



130 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

with a goad and who is very hoarse on account of 
the cold and the way he shouts at the oxen. 

Teacher. Do you do anything else? 

Plow-boy. Yes, indeed, I do. I have to fill the 
mangers with hay, and water my oxen and clean out 
their stalls. 

Teacher. That seems like a good deal of work. 

Plow-boy. Yes, sir, I have to work very hard be- 
cause I'm not free.* 

Teacher, What say you, shepherd? Do you 
work, too? 

Shepherd. O yes, sir. Early in the morning I 
drive my sheep to the pastures, and there I watch 
them with my dogs, in cold weather or hot, so that 
the wolves do not carry them off. Then I drive them 
to their pens, and I milk them twice a day, and I 
make cheese and butter. I do my master's work very 
faithfully. Sir. 

Teacher. Well, oxherd, what do you do? 

Oxherd. I work very, very hard. V/hen the 
plow-boy unyokes his oxen I drive them to the pasture 
and I watch them all night so as to protect them from 
thieves. And then early in the morning I take them, 
well fed and watered, to the plow-boy again. 

Teacher. Is that lad there one of your com- 
panions ? 

Boy (probably the head boy). Yes, sir, he is. 

Teacher. Is there anything you can do? 

Boy (to whom teacher has spoken). Yes, sir, I 
have a trade. 

*Slaves and bond-servants were still kept as late as the time of Alfric. 



A LESSON IN LATIN 131 

Teacher. What is it? 

Boy. I am a hunter. 

Teacher. Whose hunter are you? 

Hunter. The king's, sir. 

Teacher. How do you carry on your trade? 

Hunter. I braid nets and. afterwards I set my 
nets in a good place. Then I take my dogs and they 
drive the wild animals into the nets, and so I kill 
them. 

Teacher. Can't you hunt without nets? 

Hunter. Yes, I can hunt without nets. 

Teacher. How ? 

Hunter. I can run wild animals down with swift 
dogs. 

Teacher. What animals do you usually catch? 

Hunter. I catch stags and boars, and does and 
roes, and sometimes hares. 

Teacher. Did you go hunting to-day? 

Hunter. No, sir, not to-day, because to-day is 
Sunday, but I went yesterday. 

Teacher. What did you get? 

Hunter. I got two stags and one wild boar. 

Teacher. How did you catch them? 

Hunter. I took the stags in a net, but I killed the 
wild boar. 

Teacher. I should think you would be afraid to 
attack a wild boar. 

Hunter. My dogs drove him toward me, and 
when he came near, I rushed out and pierced him 
ivith my boar spear. 

Teacher. That was very brave. 



132 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Hunter. It won't do for a hunter to be timid, 
because there are a great many fierce animals in the 
forest. 

Teacher. What do you do with your game? 

Hunter. I give everything I take to the King, 
because I am his hunter. 

Teacher. What does the King give you? 

Hunter. He gives me clothing and food, and 
sometimes he gives me a horse or an arm-ring to en- 
courage me in my work. 

Hunting seems to have been a favorite subject of 
conversation, as the colloquy on this theme is a good 
deal longer than any of the rest. However, the fish- 
erman, whose turn is next, comes in for a good share. 

Teacher. What is your business? 

Fisher. I am a fisherman. 

Teacher. What do you make out of your trade? 

Fisher. I make my food and clothing and money 
besides. 

Teacher. How do you catch your fish? 

Fisher. I go out in a boat and set my nets in the 
river, and I throw out hooks and baskets,* and I take 
whatever they catch. 

Teacher. What do you do if you catch some 
fish that aren't good to eat? 

Fisher. I throw those away and take only the 
good ones. 

Teacher. Where do you sell your fish? 

Fisher. In the town. 

*Apparently traps in the shape of baskets. 



A LESSON IN LATIN 133 

Teacher. Who buys them? 

Fisher. The people of the town. I could sell 
more than I can catch. 

Teacher. What kind of fish do you catch? 

Fisher. Eels and pike and minnows and eel- 
pouts and lampreys, and every .kind that swims in 
water. 

Teacher. Why don't you fish in the ocean? 

Fisher. Sometimes I do, but not very often, be- 
cause it is a long voyage to the ocean. 

Teacher. What kind of fish do you catch in the 
ocean ? 

Fisher. Herring and salmon and porpoises and 
sturgeons, and oysters and crabs and mussels and 
periwinkles and cockles and flounders and sole and 
lobsters, and many others like these. 

Teacher. Wouldn't you like to catch a whale? 

Fisher. Not I! 

Teacher. Why not? 

Fisher. Because it is a risky thing to catch a 
whale. It's safer to go fishing in the river in my own 
boat, than to go whale-hunting with many boats. 

Teacher. How is that? 

Fisher. I would rather catch a fish that I can kill 
than one which, with one stroke, could kill not only 
me but all my companions. 

Teacher. And yet many people catch whales and 
aren't killed, and they make a great deal of money 
out of them. 

Fisher. That's true enough, but I can't do it be- 
cause I'm too much afraid. 



134 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

After the fisherman comes the fowler, who tells 
how he hunts with hawks, and how he lets his tame 
hawks fly away in the summer time after the hunting 
season is over, because he does not want to feed them 
all summer. Then when the hunting begins again, he 
goes to the forests and catches wild hawks and trains 
them to hunt. The teacher says he thinks it would be 
easier to keep the tame hawks over summer; but the 
fowler says he can catch as many hawks as he wants. 
After the fowler, the teacher questions the merchant. 

Teacher. What things do you import for us? 

Merchant. Purple cloth, silk^ precious gems, 
gold, different kinds of garments, spices, wines and 
oil, ivory, brass, bronze, tin, sulphur, glass, and many 
other things like these. 

Teacher. Do you sell your goods here for the 
same price you paid for them? 

Merchant. That I do not. If I did, what 
should I make out of it? I sell my goods for more 
than I pay for them, so that I may have some profit 
and means with which to care for my wife and my 
son. 

After this the cobbler, the salt-maker, the baker 
and the cook engage in a dispute as to which of these 
trades is the most important, each, naturally, stand- 
ing up for his own. As they appear to have difficulty 
in settling the question, the teacher asks if there is 
any wise man among the students, and when one of 
the boys takes the part of a wise man, the teacher 
asks him whicli of all men's occupations is the most 



A LESSON IN LATIN 135 

important. The wise man answers, the service of 
God. "And which," continues the teacher, "is the 
most important of all worldly occupations?" "Farm- 
ing," answers the wise man, "because the farmer 
feeds us all." 

Blacksmith says : I'd like . to know how the 
farmer could get his plowshare or coulter without my, 
help, since without me he can't make even a goad. 
And where would the fisherman get his hooks, and 
the cobbler his awl, and the tailor his needle? Aren't 
they all my work? 

Wise man answers: What you say is quite true, 
yet nevertheless wt would all rather live with the 
farmer than with you. For the farmer gives us 
meat and drink, but you, what do you give us in 
your smithy, except iron fire-sparks, and the noise of 
sledge hammers and blowing bellows? 

Carpenter says : Who is it that doesn't need my 
trade? I make houses and ships and all kinds of ves- 
sels for everybody. 

Blacksmith answers : Well now, carpenter, how 
can you talk in that fashion, when you know you 
couldn't bore a single hole if it weren't for my trade? 

Wise man says: Now let us stop this quarreling 
and let there be peace among us. And let each trade 
help the other and let none of us quarrel with the 
farmer, from whom w^e get food for ourselves and 
fodder for our horses. And this is my advice to all 
good workmen, that each one busy himself in his own 
trade, for no trade will take care of a man who 
doesn't take care of his trade. Whatever you are, 



136 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

then, whether you are a priest or a monk or a citizen 
or a soldier, attend to your own affairs. Be what 
you are, for it is a shame and a disgrace for a man 
not to want to be what he is and ought to be. 

The colloquy does not continue in this serious vein, 
however, and the teacher soon turns to one of the 
boys and asks him what he has done that day. The 
boy answers that he has done many things, having 
sung in all the services of the church except the one 
which was still to come. 

Teacher. When will you sing vespers or com- 
pline? 

Boy. As soon as the time comes. 

Teacher. Were you whipped to-da};^? 

Boy. I wasn't, because I behaved very well to-day. 

Teacher. And how about your companions? 

Boy. Why do you ask me that? You know I 
mustn't tell any of our secrets. If any one of us was 
whipped I suppose he knows it. 

Teacher. What do you eat? 

Boy. I still eat meat, because I am a boy and not 
a full-fledged monk. 

Teacher. What else do you eat ? 

Boy. Vegetables and eggs, fish and cheese, but- 
ter, beans, and everything that's good to eat. 

Teacher. You must be a great eater if you eat 
everything that's set before you. 

Boy. I'm not such a great eater that I eat all kinds 
of foods at one meal. 

Teacher. How is that? 



A LESSON IN LATIN 137 

Boy. Sometimes I eat this food and sometimes 
that, but always with moderation as it becomes a 
monk, not greedily, because I am not a glutton. 

Teacher. And what do you drink? 

Boy. Ale, if I have it, or water, if I can't get ale. 

Teacher. Don't you drink wine? 

Boy. I am not rich enough to buy wine, and wine 
is not a drink for boys or foolish people, but only for 
old men and wise ones. 

Teacher. Where do you sleep? 

Boy. In the dormitory with the brethren. 

Teacher. Who wakens you in the morning? 

Boy, Sometimes I hear the bell and get up my- 
self, but sometimes my master wakens me with a 
stick. 

After this the colloquy closes with a little speech 
by the teacher to his pupils, in which he exhorts them 
to attend to their duties diligently and always to be- 
have themselves properly. Probably the boys found 
the Latin of this last speech hard to understand, or at 
any rate, to put into practice. But if they had learned 
enough Latin to converse on all the other topics con- 
tained in the colloquy, it must be acknowledged that 
they were all on the way to becoming scholars and 
clerks. 




XIII 



THE TWO HAROLDS 



One of these two Harolds was King Harold of 
England, the son of Earl Godwin and the last Eng- 
lish king before the coming of William the Conqueror. 
Harold was king less than a year, but in that short 
time he won a great victory and met with a great 
defeat. The great victory, about w^hich this story is 
to tell, w^as won when Harold of England overcame 
the other Harold, the son of Sigurd, king of the 
Northmen, at the battle of Stamfordbridge in North- 
umberland. 

Now King Harold of England became king of the 
English not by right of birth but by the free choice 
of the English people. For Harold was only the son 
of Godwin, the earl of the West Saxons, and though 
Godwin was a very powerful earl, he was not of the 
ancient royal family of England. Nevertheless, 
when King Edward the Confessor died, there seemed 
to be no one of the royal family fit to be chosen king 
after him, and so the people determined to do as the 
English people had often done before, to make a 

138 



THE TWO HAROLDS 139 

king from among their own great men to lead and 
direct them in peace or battle. No one seemed so 
well able to govern the country as Harold, the son 
of Godwin, and with the full consent of the people, 
Harold was chosen to be their sovereign. 

All might have gone well with the new king and 
his people if it had not been for the interference of 




Archers on Foot 



Harold's rebellious and jealous brother Tostig. At 
various times Tostig had managed to create a dis- 
turbance, and at last, by his harsh and cruel behavior, 
he made himself so unpopular with the Northum- 
brians, over whom he was appointed as earl, that they 
rose up against him and drove him out of the town of 
York, which was their capital city. Then Tostig 
came with his troubles to Harold, his brother, and 
asked Harold to help him regain his lost earldom and 



I40 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

to punish the Northumbrians. But Harold was a 
just ruler, and when he had heard both sides of the 
story, he decided that the haughty Tostig deserved 
the treatment he had received, and he therefore re- 
fused to help him avenge himself on his former sub- 
jects. So, for one reason and another, Tostig cher- 
ished his grievances and finally decided to rebel 
against the authority of his brother. King Harold, 
and see what he could win for himself by the might 
of his own sword. 

Tostig busied himself in airing his wrongs, as he 
called them, and managed to get together a certain 
number of followers who were willing to support 
him. But they were far too few to risk an open fight 
with the whole English army, and Tostig then deter- 
mined that he must seek for help outside of England. 
His thoughts first turned to Denmark, where Swegen 
was then king, and thither he first sailed with a ship- 
load of his retainers. 

Now this Swegen was the nephew of the great 
Danish king Cnut, who had once held both the Dan- 
ish and English thrones for many years. And Tos- 
tig now told Swegen that this was his opportunity to 
win back the power over the English which his uncle 
had held, and that he would help him to do it. To 
all these plans of Tostig, Swegen listened patiently; 
but when Tostig had finished, Swegen replied, ''Cnut 
was a great man, and I am a little man. Cnut won 
Norway without striking a blow, but I have all I 
can do to keep Denmark from falling into the hands 
of the Northmen." When Tostig heard this, he was 



THE TWO HAROLDS 



141 



greatly disappointed, and said that if Swegen would 
not help him, he would go for help where Swegen 
little supposed he would go. 

Now, by this answer Tostig meant that he would 
go to King Harold of Norway, who was Swegen's 
greatest enemy. Harold of Notway was the son of 
Sigurd, and he was one of the bravest warriors of his 
day. He was a bold and handsome man, and his hair 




Norman Mounted Soldiers 

and beard were yellow. He was taller by a great deal 
than most men, and his hands and his feet were large 
but very well shaped. One of his eyebrows was a little 
higher than the other. He was a stirring and am- 
bitious man and had fought in the army of the Em- 
peror at Constantinople and had even journeyed as 
far as Jerusalem. To this famous sea-king Tostig 
now went with his plan for conquering England, and 
Harold, eager to win plunder and glory, lent him a 
willing ear. Tostig's plot seemed a good one to 



142 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Harold, and the two conspirators soon came to terms. 
Word was straightway sent out and a great army of 
Northmen was collected to go with Harold to Eng- 
land. The Northmen, however, were not all confi- 
dent of victory. One of them, named Thord, had a 
dream or vision in which he saw the English army 
advancing against the Northmen, and at the head of 
the English came a huge witch-wife riding on a wolf 
which continually devoured great numbers of dead 
bodies which the witch-wife fed to it. King Harold 
of Norway himself had a dream which boded little 
good for him, but he was too resolute and bold a man 
to be turned aside by dreams, and when his army -was 
ready, he set sail for England. 

As soon as they had landed, the army of Harold 
of Norway and the rebellious Tostig plundered here 
and there along the coast, until they were met by the 
English forces under the command of two Eng- 
lish earls. A battle was fought and for a while it 
looked as though the English would be victorious; 
but just in time King Harold of Norway appeared 
in the midst of the fighting, bearing his banner, which 
he called the Landwaster, and he and his men fought 
so valiantly that they turned the tide in favor of the 
Northmen. A great many Englishmen were slain 
in this battle, and even more were drowned in the 
river Ouse, on the banks of which stream the fighting 
took place. Being now without any defence, the 
town of York submitted to Harold of Norway, and 
Tostig was thus, as he supposed, avenged on the peo- 
ple who had driven him out of this same town some 



THE TWO HAROLDS 143 

time before. The day on which the town of York 
thus surrendered to Harold of Norway was Sunday, 
and after the English had accepted Harold as their 
king and had given promises to help him fight against 
Harold of England, the Northmen all went back to 
their ships, intending to return 'to York in the morn- 
ing and hold a great meeting in the town in order to 
take formal possession of it. 

In the meantime, however, word had come to Har- 
old of England that the Northmen had landed in 
Northumberland, and gathering his army together, 
he traveled as fast as he could from London toward 
York. He reached the town on the evening of this 
same Sunday on which it had surrendered, but after 
Harold of Norway had gone back to his ships. The 
English of York were overjoyed to have Harold, the 
king of the English, with them, and they received 
him and his army into the town and set watches all 
about so that no word of the arrival of the English 
should be carried to the Northmen. 

The next morning Harold of Norway prepared to 
go back and take possession of the town. One third 
of his army he left behind to guard the ships, and 
with the rest he and Tostig set out. It was a warm 
day of summer, and not expecting any serious fight- 
ing, the Northmen left behind their heavy mail and 
armor, and carried with them only their helmets, 
swords and shields. Now, as they marched along in 
high good humor and as they drew near to the town, 
they saw ahead of them a cloud of dust, as though an 
army of men and of horses was approaching, and 



144 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

soon, too, they saw the gHtter of spears and of armor. 
"Do you know," said Harold of Norway to Tostig, 
"what this throng is coming toward us?" "Not 
surely," answered Tostig, speaking truly; "it may 
be the host of the English, or it may be some of my 
friends and kinsmen who have come to do honor to 
you." By this time the English had come still nearer, 
and it could be seen that they were a very great army, 
and their weapons glittered in the sun like ice-splin- 
ters. Harold of Norway then felt sure that this was 
the army of the English, and he halted his men in 
order to take counsel. Tostig cautiously advised 
that they should go back to their ships and get their 
armor, or, better still, go into the ships and defend 
themselves from there, for then the English would be 
at a disadvantage. "Rather let us stay here," ex- 
claimed Harold of Norway, who was eager for a 
fight, "and let us send back three men on swift horses 
to call up the rest of our army. These English shall 
see some hard hand-play before we are done with 
them." 

To this plan Tostig must agree because Harold 
was his master. Then Harold of Norway arranged 
his men for the battle. He set up his banner called 
the Landwaster, and he formed his men in a hollow 
circle around it. The men were so placed that their 
shields interlocked and made a shield-wall with no 
opening in it. Then Harold of Norway directed his 
men that they should set their spears in the ground, 
and that the first row of men in the shield-wall should 
point their spears so that they would strike the breasts 



THE TWO HAROLDS 145 

of the men, and the second row in the shield-wall 
should set their spears so that they would strike the 
breasts of the horses, when the English rode against 
them. When this was done Harold of Norway rode 
around his host to see that all was in order. It was a 
black horse on which he rode, -and as he went here 
and there, the horse stumbled and Harold was thrown 
to the ground. 'There's good luck in a fall for a 
traveler," he exclaimed as he sprang to his feet. Now 
the English were near enough by this time to see all 
that was happening, and when Harold of England 
was told that the man who had fallen was his enemy 
of Norway, he saw in the accident a less happy omen 
for the Northmen. 

Then out from the band of the English there rode 
twenty horsemen, and men and horses were all well 
covered with armor. As they drew near to the shield- 
wall of the Northmen, one of the Englishmen spoke 
and said, "Is Earl Tostig, son of Godwin, here in 
this army?" ''No one can say," answered Tostig, 
"that he is not here." Then the other spoke to Tos- 
tig and said, "Harold of England greets Tostig his 
brother, and says that he shall have all Northumber- 
land as he had it aforetime. More than this, he shall 
have one third of the realm of England to rule over, 
rather than there should be enmity between brother 
and brother." "The words of Harold are fairer," 
answered Tostig, "than they were when I spoke to 
him last winter, for then he had nothing but spite 
and scorn for me. But this also I would know. If 
I listen to Harold of England and make peace with 



146 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

him, what will Harold of England have to offer to 
King Harold of Norway?" "Seven feet of English 
soil," answered the horseman, "or as much more as 
he needs, being taller than other men." "Take this 
answer then to Harold of England," said Tostig, 
"that never will it be said that Tostig was untrue to 
his word to Harold of Norway. Here w^e will die 
like men, or like men we will win England by fight- 
ing." With no more words, the twenty horsemen 
rode back to the English army, and when they were 
gone, Harold of Norway said to Earl Tostig, "Who 
was that man who spoke so fairly to you?" "That 
man," said Tostig, "was Harold, my brother, the son 
of Godwin and king of the English." Then Harold 
of Norway was angry that Tostig had not told him 
this sooner, for he thought they might easily have de- 
stroyed Harold of England when he was so near to 
them. But Tostig answered that though it was rash 
in so great a man as Harold of England thus to 
risk himself, he had no wish to be a betrayer of his 
brother. "H one of us must fall at the hands of the 
other," said Tostig, "I would rather Harold were the 
death of Tostig than Tostig the death of Harold." 
Then Harold of Norway turned aside to his own men 
and said, "This Harold of the English is not a tall 
man, yet he sat well in his stirrups." 

Thereupon the battle began in deadly earnest. 
King Harold of Norway put on his coat of mail, the 
name of which was Emma, and with the Landwaster 
in their midst, the Northmen were ready for the at- 
tack. The English on their part rode up against the 



THE TWO HAROLDS 147 

line of the Northmen, but so firm and solid was the 
shield-wall that every time they were driven back by 
the bristling ranks of Norwegian spears. After they 
had made a number of onsets in this fashion, the at- 
tacks of the English became less vigorous and de- 
termined, and thus the Northmen were led to make a 
fatal mistake. For they supposed that the English 
were too weak to continue the fight, and when they 
saw their enemies falling back, they broke their shield- 
wall and followed after to attack them. The Eng- 
lish at once seized their opportunity and pressing in 
among the Northmen from all sides they cut them 
down to right and left, and slew many with their 
spears and bows and arrows. King Harold of Nor- 
way had taken his stand in the center of his army 
beside the Landwaster, but when he saw that the 
shield-wall w^as broken, he knew that it was time for 
him to take part in the fight. He hurried to the place 
where the throng was thickest and laid on so might- 
ily with his two-handed sword, that the English were 
on the point of retreating. But just then an English 
bowman let fly an arrow which struck King Harold 
of Norway in the throat, and that was the death 
wound of the leader of the Norwegian army. Now 
that. Harold of Norway was slain, the fighting 
stopped for a time, and Harold of England again of- 
fered Tostig peace if he would yield to him. But 
not one of the side of the Northmen would accept 
Harold's peace, and they all said, ''Rather than quar- 
ter at the hands of the English, we will all die here, 
one beside the other." Then Tostig took Harold of 



148 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Norway's place beside the Landwaster, and the fight- 
ing continued until both Tostig and a great part of 
the Northmen lay dead upon the field of battle. 

But not yet had the English won the victory. For 
the rest of the Northmen whom Harold had left be- 
hind to guard the ships, and whom he had sent for 
when he saw the English host approaching, now came 
up, all fitted out in full armor. These Northmen 
were led by Orre Eystein, a very bold warrior, and 
now the fiercest fighting of all began. This is called 
Orre Eystein's Charge, and though Orre and his men 
were all out of breath from the haste with which they 
had come to the field of battle, they fought with the 
fury of madmen. When they saw that the day was 
going against them, they fought all the more sav- 
agely, and finally they threw away their coats of mail 
and their shields, so that they might have nothing but 
their spears and swords to manage. For a long time 
Orre and his men defended the Landwaster; but the 
English were too many and too well armed for them, 
and as the evening drew on, Orre and many more of 
the chief men of the Northmen, as well as the greater 
part of their army, had taken their places beside Har- 
old and Tostig among the heaps of the slain on the 
field of battle. Then the few of them that were still 
living saved themselves by flight and left Harold of 
England master of the field and victorious. 

One of the Northmen who escaped was Harold of 
Norway's marshal, and Styrkar was his name. He 
fled away on horseback with nothing but his sword 
and his helmet and his shirt upon his back. Now as 



THE TWO HAROLDS 149 

the night came on, the wind began to blow cold, and 
Styrkar, after the heat of the battle, felt keenly the 
chill of it. As he rode along he met an English 
peasant who was wearing a coat made of skins with 
the fur on the inside. "Will you sell me your coat?" 
said Styrkar to the peasant. "No, I will not sell you 
my coat," answered the peasant, "for I know by your 
voice that you are a Northman." Then when Styr- 
kar asked the peasant what he would do about it, the 
peasant replied that if he had a sword, he would do 
his best to slay Styrkar. "Well," answered Styrkar, 
"if you have no sword, I have one," and with that he 
set upon the peasant and slew him, and putting on the 
fur coat, he rode forth at least in comfort if not in 
safety. 

This is the story of how Harold of England won 
the great fight with the Northmen under Harold of 
Norway and Tostig at Stamfordbridge, on the 
twenty-fifth day of September in the year one thou- 
sand and sixty-six. It was a great victory, but Har- 
old had but short time to enjoy it; for four days 
later William of Normandy with his French army 
landed on the southern coast of England, and the 
fate which had befallen Harold of Norway at Stam- 
fordbridge overtook Harold of England at the still 
more famous battle of Hastings. 




XIV 



THE END OF OLDEST ENGLAND 



King Harold of England was resting in the town 



of York after his great fight at Stamfordbridge. 



He 



had met the Northmen under their leaders Harold of 
Norway and the rebellious Tostig, and he had won 
such a victory over them that the news of it, carried 
back to Norway by the survivors of the battle, must 
prevent the troublesome Northmen from soon under- 
taking the conquest of England again. The English 
might well suppose that now they could look forward 
to a time of peace for their country, a peace that was 
as much needed as it was wished for. 

But peace was not yet to be, nor was Harold, the 
last of the kings of oldest England, to reap the fruits 
of his victory over the Northmen. For suddenly 
there appeared in the town of York a horseman, 
travel-stained and weary. He had ridden as fast 
as his horse could carry him from London, and the 
news he brought was that, four days after the fight 
at Stamfordbridge, AA'illiam of Normandy had 
landed with a French army on the southern coast of 

150 



END OF OLDEST ENGLAND i si- 

England. "Had I been there," said Harold, ''he 
should not have landed so easily." 

Now this William, duke of Normandy, who was 
soon to become the Conqueror of England, main- 
tained that he was the rightful king of England. He 
declared that King Edward thfe Good before his 
death promised that William should be king after 
him, and he also declared that Harold himself, when 
he was in Normandy some years before, had sworn 
allegiance to William and had promised to be his man 
when William should become king. William had 
various other reasons to show that he was the right- 
ful king of the English, but how much force or truth 
there was in them, or whether there was any truth in 
them, it is very hard at this day to say. It is quite cer- 
tain, however, that William was an ambitious man, and 
that he was anxious to make even a poor excuse serve 
in a bad cause. For no matter what Edward had said 
or Harold had promised, according to English law 
there was only one way by which an English king 
could be chosen, and that was by the free election of 
the chief men of the English people. It was in this 
way that Harold had been made king, and he rightly 
felt that it was his duty to defend England and his 
own office of king as powerfully as he was able. Gath- 
ering his forces together again, he immediately 
turned his face southward and hastened to meet these 
new invaders of his kingdom. He stayed a few days 
in London, collecting as many troops as he could get 
together, and then he crossed the Thames to face the 
Norman army. 



15^ 



IN OLDEST ENGLAND 



The place where Duke WilHani had landed was on 
the coast of Sussex, at the little tow'n of Pevensey, 
and as there was no one there to preven4; him, he 
landed his troops without any interference. As Wil- 
liam himself leaped from his boat to the shore, he 
stumbled and fell, but quickly sprang up again wath 
his hands full of earth. "A good omen, Lord Duke," 
cried one of his men, "for now already you have the 




A Norman Ship 

land of the English in your hands." But good omen 
or bad omen, William of Normandy was not to win 
the land of the English without striking many a hard 
blow for it. After the landing at Pevensey, William 
marched on a short distance and entrenched him- 
self on a hill called Hastings, and King Harold, after 
he had gathered his army, marched south from Lon- 
don and pitched his camp on another hill near by, 
which was called Senlac. And so from the names of 



END OF OLDEST ENGLAND 153 

these two camps, the battle which was soon to be 
fought here is sometimes called the Battle of Hast- 
ings, and sometimes the Battle of Senlac. 

It was the fourteenth day of October in the year 
ten hundred and sixty-six, when the two armies stood 
face to face and ready for the battle. The Normans 
were a mighty host, both of foot-soldiers and of 
horsemen, and all of them were furnished with armor 
and weapons of the very best kind. But of all the 
French troops, none did better service on this day, as 
we shall see, than the famous archers of Louviers and 
Evreux, though the others, too, were not lacking in 
deeds of valor. The army was arranged in three di- 
visions, and at the center rode Duke William with the 
flower of Norman chivalry about him. "Never," said 
the Viscount of Thouars, when William had mounted 
his horse, "never was such another knight seen under 
heaven, and the noble count shall to-day become a 
nobler king." The steed that William the Conqueror 
rode on was meet for such a master, for it was a gift 
to him from King Alfonso of Galicia, in Spain. And 
by the side of William there rode many another only 
less worthy than he. There was Odo, his brother, 
bishop of Bayeux, and Geoffrey, the bishop of Cou- 
tances, and not far away, Robert of Mortain, a third 
brother of William and Odo. But William and Odo 
rode side by side, and each bore in his hand as his 
only weapon a heavy mace. Near them rode Toustain 
the White, bearing the sacred banner which Pope 
Alexander of Rome had given to William to bless 
his cause, and round about these in the center, glit- 



154 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

tered the hosts of armored Freiicliiiieri as far as the 
eye could see. Then Duke WiUiam heard mass and 
received "communion before entering the battle, and 
the bishops gave their blessing to all the men of the 
French army. And William made a vow that if the 
victory were given to him, he would build a holy 
minster on the very spot where the standard of King 
Harold was now waving; and so in after times he 
did build there the Abbey of St. Martin of the Place 
of Battle. 

On the other hill of Senlac were ranged the forces 
of Harold, fewer and less brilliant in their panoply of 
war than the Frenchmen, but no less stout of heart. 
Unlike the Normans, the English were all on foot, 
for it was not the manner of the English at this time 
to fight on horseback. Nor was it the English man- 
ner to fight with bows and arrows, but with spears 
and swords, and, most terrible of all, with the mighty 
two-handed axes which they had learned how to use 
from the Danes and Northmen. Shields and coats of 
mail and helmets were the defense of the English, 
but many of them unhappily had neither mail to pro- 
tect them nor weapons fit to oppose the armor of 
their enemies. In the center of the English stood 
Harold, the King, and by his side were his two broth- 
ers, the valiant Gyrth and the bold Leo f wine. Nor 
were priests and men of religion lacking in Harold's 
army any more than in William's; for there were Alf- 
wig, abbot of Winchester, and Leofric, the abbot of 
Peterborough, and many another whose monk's gown 
was covered with a coat of mail. In the center of the 



156 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

English host, where King Harold stood, rose up the 
Dragon of Wessex, the famous banner of the Eng- 
lish which many a time had led them to victory 
against the Danes and Northmen ; and by its side 
stood the Standard of King Harold, with its device 
of the fighting warrior all wrought in gold on a glit- 
tering fabric. Thus the English stood, surrounding 
their heroic king and waiting for the onset of the 
Normans. 

Now before the fighting began, the two leaders, 
William of Normandy and King Harold of England, 
each made a speech to his soldiers. Duke William 
told his men that he had come to England only to 
obtain what was rightly his, that Harold of England 
had broken his w^ord to him and that therefore he 
must be punished. He said also that the Normans 
were much better soldiers than the English, for the 
English had never done well in battle, and time and 
again they had been defeated by the Danes, who 
had once even taken their land from them. Many 
other charges he made against the English, and he 
ended by saying that he had come to avenge the 
many wrongs the English had done; and that God 
would help him and his army in their righteous cause. 
Perhaps William believed everything he said, but 
whether he did or not his speech had the effect of rais- 
ing even higher the spirit of the already excited Nor- 
mans. Much mere modest and simple, on the other 
hand, was the speech of King Harold. William of 
Normandy had come over to England, he told his 
men, to conquer them if he could, but if they held to 



END OF OLDEST ENGLAND 157 

the defensive, firm and resolute, they had nothing to 
fear. The Norman soldiers, especially the Norman 
horsemen, were courageous and terrible fighters, and 
if they once got into the midst of the English ranks, 
there would be little hope for them. Then Harold 
pointed out to his men that the most important thing 
of all was that there should be no break in their shield- 
w^all, that the Normans must never be allowed to 
make any opening through which they could ride to 
the hill on which the- English were entrenched. Their 
only hope, said Harold, was in keeping an unbroken 
shield-wall, in standing firm in their position and in 
cutting down every man who approached their front. 
H they did this, he told them, they might be sure the 
victory would be won. 

It was about nine o'clock on Saturday morning, 
when the Normans began to move from their en- 
trenchments on Hastings to attack the English line. 
In front came the heavy armed foot-soldiers and the 
archers, and last of all came the horsemen. The 
archers let fly a shower of arrows, but they did little 
harm, being caught in the English shields, and the 
Erench host drew nearer. Now there was in the 
French army a warrior whose name was Taillefer, 
and he was also a minstrel or singer of songs. Taille- 
fer begged this boon of William, that he might be 
allowed to strike the first blow, hand to hand, and 
William granting his request, the minstrel rode out 
alone in front of the Norman army, throwing his 
sword up in the air and catching it again and singing 
the old hero songs of Charlemagne and Roland. 



158 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

Taillefer did strike the first blow, and so brave was. he 
and so strong" of arm that two of the English were 
slain before he was beaten down by the English axes. 
And then the main body of the French pressed for- 
ward and the battle began in earnest. 

The French foot-soldiers were in front of the horse, 
and it was William's plan that the foot-soldiers should 
make a breach in the English shield-wall, through 
which his horsemen could ride and thus easily over- 
run the English. But the foot-soldiers were unable 
to break down the wall of shields at any point. They 
made attack after attack, shouting their battle cry, 
**God aid us," but each time when they drew near 
to the English front they were cut down by the huge 
axes in the hands of the English, who answered with 
their cry, some shouting, "God the Almighty," and 
others, ''Holy Cross." Even with the French horse- 
men to support them, the foot-soldiers were unable 
to approach the English line or to make any head- 
way up the hill where floated the golden Dragon and 
the Standard. The English stood there, literally 
like a wall, dealing out death to all that drew near. 
At length the courage of the French began to give 
way, and one division of them, panic-stricken, turned 
back in flight. The confusion soon spread to the rest 
of the French troops, and even the Normans in the 
center, where rode William and Odo and other great 
captains, were drawn into retreat. For a moment it 
looked as though the rout of the French would be 
complete, and the cry arose that William himself was 
slain. But, hearing this cry, William took off his 



END OF OLDEST ENGLAND 159 

helmet and, showing his face to the frightened army, 
he shouted to encourage them, "I h'ye and hy grace 
of God will conquer." The main body of the Eng- 
lish, on the other side, still kept the defensive, firm 
and immovable, as Harold had commanded them. 
But some of the English troops at a distance from the 
King, seeing the French, as they thought, in full 
retreat, could not resist the temptation to go in pur- 
suit of them. They paid dearly for their disobedi- 
ence, for William quickly rallied his men, and his 
horsemen rode down upon the pursuing English and 
cut them down on all sides. 

The French now^ returned to the attack with re- 
newed courage. The center of the French army 
under the three brothers, William, Odo and Robert, 
sought out the center of the English army where the 
three English brothers Harold and Gyrth and Leof- 
wine were grouped about the Standard. William rode 
forward and tried hard to come face to face with 
Llarold where he stood in the thickest of the fight. In 
this he almost succeeded, but the watchful Gyrth, who 
was fighting near his brother, saw William in time 
and hurled his spear at him. The spear missed the 
rider but it struck the horse which bore him, the 
noble steed given to William by King Alfonso of 
Spain, and it fell dead to the ground. Twice again 
on this day of battle William's horse was killed be- 
neath him, but the great leader himself seemed 
charmed against all the weapons that were hurled at 
him. Having lost his horse, William continued the 
attack on foot, and now he pressed so far forward 



i6o IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

that he came face to face with Gyrth, whose spear 
had almost m.ade an end of him, and in the iight 
that took place between them, he struck Gyrth down 
with the great iron mace that he bore in his hands. 
Thus perished one of the bravest of the English and 
one of the first of those to fall who stood about Har- 
old's Standard. Another to fall soon after was Leof- 
wine, and of the three English brothers, now only 
Harold the King was left to lead and encourage the 
English army. But still the English held bravely to- 
gether. \^^here one fell in the shield-wall, the others 
pressed closer together and left no gap for the en- 
trance of the Normans. The living rampart still 
stood firm and solid about the King, and William saw 
clearly that his men could never break through 
it and that they would simply destroy themselves by 
dashing up against it. 

Then it was that William planned to bring about 
by cunning what he could not accomplish by force. 
He had observed how a part of the English had left 
their places a short time before when the French had 
fallen back after the first attack, and now he sent 
word throughout the French host that they should 
turn and pretend to be in full flight, but should be 
ready to take up the attack if the English left their 
defensive position. The plan worked well, for a 
large part of the English, seeing the French in full 
retreat, and supposing the battle to be over, broke 
away from the shield-wall and set off in pursuit. 
What had happened before happened now again. 
For the French beheld the English scattered over the 



END OF OLDEST ENGLAND i6i 

field; they rode back among them and soon those of 
the English who had left the ranks were themselves 
in flight, not pretended but in deadly earnest. This 
gave William his first great advantage, for now the 
hill on which the English had taken their position 
was unprotected on many sides and the French were 
able to ride up to the very center of the English 
army. It was about this center that the fighting from 
now on took place, for here were grouped King Har- 
old and the pick of the English army. These men 
had been true to their orders, and here they still kept 
their shield-wall opposed to the enemy. But though 
the advantage was now on William's side, the vic- 
tory was not yet by any means won. To an English 
leader and his men, there were only two ends to a 
battle, and one was victory and the other death. No 
quarter was asked for and none was offered. It was 
to be a fight to the finish, and William realized th^t 
the hardest part of his battle was still before him. 
At nine in the morning the fighting had begun, and 
now at twilight the English center was still uncon- 
quered, and the Dragon and the Standard still held 
their places on Senlac. Soon it would be dark, and 
with a night of rest for the English to recover in, 
William saw that he would have to undertake the 
attack again in the morning with a discouraged army 
and with much less chance of success. But now for 
the second time on this day, William's wit helped him 
and brought him the final victory. For seeing that 
he would be unable to break through the English 
center, he commanded his archers to fall back and 



i62 IN OLDEST ENGLAND 

instead of spending their arrows against the English 
shield-wall, w-here they did little damage, he ordered 
them to shoot up into the air, so that the arrows 
would fall from above on the heads of the English. 
Down this terrible shower came, bearing with it 
death and destruction. If the English protected their 
heads w^ith their shields, they could not defend their 
bodies and could not wield their heavy axes. If they 
protected their bodies, they were exposed to the mer- 
ciless rain of arrow^s that pierced them before they 
could see them. Against this kind of fighting, the 
shield-Avall was defenceless, and what William could 
not accomplish in open battle he accomplished by this 
crafty use of his bowmen. One fatal arrow did more 
mischief than all the rest. It fell like a bolt from 
heaven, and entering the right eye of King Harold, 
it pierced him to the center of life. The King's axe 
dropped from his hands ; he seized the shaft of the 
arrow and broke it off, and sank down helpless and 
dying beside his Standard. 

A band of the Normans, twenty in number, now 
rushed forward to seize the banner which the King 
was no longer able to defend. But if the King w^as 
helpless, there were still some of his guard able to 
wield weapons, and of these twenty, most gave their: 
lives in payment for their daring. A few, however, 
reached the Standard and beat it down to the earth. 
They carried off the Dragon with them and left the 
body of the King, hewn and mutilated with sword 
wounds. Of all King Harold's guard not one was 



END OF OLDEST ENGLAND 163 

left standing, but thane-like they lay on the field 
beside their king. 

Thus did Duke William of Normandy win the 
great fight at the hill of Senlac, and thus fell one of 
the bravest of the race of the English. The Dragon 
of Wessex that many a time had led the armies of 
Alfred and of Athelstan to victory against the 
heathen Danes and Northmen now passed into the 
hands of a stranger, and the old kingdom of the Eng- 
lish in England came to an end. But the ending itself 
was glorious, for never before had English bravery 
and loyalty shone out more clearly than they did in 
this last fight of King Harold. A new England was 
now to take the place of oldest England, in some ways 
a greater and stronger England than the Anglo-Sax- 
ons had ever known. It was a different England, how- 
ever, for William of Normandy was not only the 
conqueror of the English people, but in the many 
years in which he ruled them as king, he became also 
their leader and the founder of their new greatness. 
With King Harold ends the oldest England of Hen- 
gest and Horsa and the Saxon invaders, and with 
William the First begins the new England of Norman 
knighthood and chivalry. 



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